Failed Ascension: I Cursed Heaven and Earth to Have No Immortals for 10,000 Years!

Chapter One — Nine Tribulations Broken, the Immortal Path Severed

Violet lightning split the sky. Gale winds scoured the ravines. The Tribulation Platform of the Northern Wastes stood ten thousand arm-lengths tall, a cliff of black stone driven straight up into the cloud sea. Along its base, ninety-nine immortal-sealing sigils were burning their last dim gold, and then the fire and the thunder swallowed them.

Lin Yan stood at the center of the platform. Storm-fire had cut his black Daoist robe to rags. His left arm hung broken from the shoulder, blackened, held on by a finger’s width of sinew. In his right hand he gripped his life-bound immortal sword, Qinghan, and the blade was webbing into cracks. The Soul-Condensing Jade on the tassel had gone to dust when the eighth heavenly lightning of the Nine Heavens fell. It had walked three thousand years beside him.

He lifted his eyes and stared through the boiling black clouds. Beyond them should have lain the opening gate of immortality and the guiding light. The Immortal Realm. He had gone after it for three thousand seven hundred years. Every sea and province of the Nine Provinces. Every demon he cut down, every wretch he pulled out of his misery.

What hung up there instead was the ninth bolt, the world-ending one, coming down in a long coil like a dragon. Grey-white at the core, dead. The kind of force that grinds immortal bone to powder.

Lin Yan is three thousand seven hundred and twenty-six this year. An elder of the Azure Cloud Sect picked him up at the sect gate when he was six, and after that he was the most stubborn disciple the sect had. Mediocre aptitude, and he paid for it in hours. Other men sat in meditation an hour, he sat three. Other men ran a sword form a thousand times, he ran it ten thousand. In the grand tournaments he came in last every year and got up every year. On that alone he broke through to Foundation Establishment inside a hundred years, formed his core at three hundred, reached Nascent Soul at five hundred, Spirit Severing at a thousand, Void Refining at two thousand, Body Integration at three thousand, and at three thousand five hundred walked into Great Ascension. The youngest Great Ascension cultivator in the Nine Provinces in near ten thousand years. They gave him a name to be called by: the Venerable Yandao.

Every cultivator in the Nine Provinces knew what his Dao was. It was the Dao of following Heaven. It was the Dao of doing good. On the shore of the Eastern Sea he had used his own cultivation as the anchor, spent a hundred years of his power, and sealed the remnant of the Torch Dragon that turned the tides inside out. Thirty million people on that coast lived. In the flowing sands of the Western Desert he sank channels and drew springs, fed the barren ground with his arts, and made a thousand li of green grass out of nothing. In the miasma forests of the Southern Marches he took the poison himself until he found the cure, and tens of thousands of Miao villagers half dead in the fog walked out alive. In the demon tide at the northern border he held Yanmen Pass alone for a hundred years and cut down a hundred thousand demon soldiers, and the northern folk slept with their doors unbolted.

He kept faith with Heaven. He honored the gods. He believed what he had been taught: Heaven rewards diligence, good is repaid with good, and a heart set on the light will walk the immortal path sooner or later and stand in the ranks of the immortals.

For that day he had given up the seat of Sect Lord of the Azure Cloud Sect. He had given up the woman he loved. He had given up every coin and every honor the mortal world holds, and come alone to this platform in the Northern Wastes to meet nine tribulations and break open the gate.

Three thousand seven hundred years of cultivation. Three thousand seven hundred years of not turning back. Three thousand seven hundred years of one fixed idea, all of it crowded into this last moment.

Lin Yan drew a breath. The broken arm sent pain up through him like a drill. His spiritual power was nearly gone and the cracks in Qinghan had reached the hilt, and the fire in his eyes had not gone out. He lifted his hand and made the final seal to summon the immortals, and said low: “Heaven above, Lin Yan offers up his heart to prove his Dao. Let him bear the nine tribulations. Let him into the gate.”

The words fell. The grey-white bolt came down.

Nothing shook. There was a small sound, like glass breaking.

Qinghan came apart into a sky full of splinters and the gales took them. The protective light around Lin Yan tore like wet paper. The tribulation went through his body, broke his dantian, ground his spirit veins apart, and tore a long wound in his soul.

He came off the platform like a kite with its string cut, hit the rocks below the base, and threw a red spray over them.

The black clouds above him drained. The cloud sea opened, clean blue, and the guiding light did not come.

He had failed his tribulation.

The best hope of Ascension in ten thousand years had lost.

Lin Yan lay face down among the rocks. Nine-tenths and more of his bones were broken. He could not move a finger. Only his mind still worked, holding on in the dark. He could feel his life running out of him, his soul going a little at a time, three thousand seven hundred years of cultivation draining away like a tide with none of it held back.

Why?

He screamed it inside his head. His voice was hoarse and nothing came out.

He had walked with Heaven. He had piled up merit. He had sheltered the Nine Provinces and never in his life done one thing that injured the innocent. Why was Heaven like this to him?

Why had three thousand seven hundred years still come to nothing against a fate with no shape to it?

He thought of his master at the Azure Cloud Sect. When Lin Yan had entered Great Ascension the old man took his hand and sighed. Yan’er, your Dao is too straight. Too upright. Heaven has no constancy. It may not have a place for kindness that pure.

Lin Yan had waved it off. This disciple trusts in Heaven, he said. This disciple trusts in fairness.

His master shook his head and let it go. He only gave him a piece of jade. If your tribulation fails, this will shelter a thread of your soul. One way to live. That jade had gone to ash in the lightning first.

The Soul-Condensing Jade had gone to dust in the lightning. So that one.

He thought of Su Qingyuan, the woman he loved, who had brewed clear tea for him in the back hills of the Azure Cloud Sect for three hundred years. She used to say: Lin Yan, the immortal path is long. When you get tired, turn around and look. I will be there.

He had put her aside for that path. Wait until I ascend, he told her. I will come back for you.

Now the path was broken and the woman was gone. Three hundred years after he left the Azure Cloud Sect she fell ill of missing him and died, and left behind one cup of tea gone cold and one letter he never opened.

He thought of the people of the Nine Provinces. The ones he had pulled out of the water and off the sickbeds. The ones who honored him, loved him, built living shrines for him and prayed to him as a god. Their Venerable Yandao was a wreck now, a man who had lost his tribulation, about to be a handful of dirt.

Unwilling.

It came up through him like a fire lit in his chest, and the fire burned through his organs and cracked his soul.

He had given everything. He had held on to everything. This was what came back to him.

Heaven was blind.

The gods had no virtue in them at all.

Lin Yan used the last of his strength to lift his head and look up at that clear sky. His eyes held nothing but hate and despair, enough to burn it all down. He opened his mouth, blood came up out of his throat in a rush, and what left him was a scream that rang across the Nine Provinces:

“Heaven is unjust. The gods have no honor. I, Lin Yan, set my curse here. For ten thousand years, no path to immortality. Whoever seeks Ascension, soul and spirit annihilated, body and form extinguished. Whoever has already become an immortal, cast down into the mortal dust and made to suffer ten thousand lives of reincarnation. Let this curse take my remnant soul for its guide, my heart’s blood for its offering, three thousand seven hundred years of my cultivation for its base. Let it stand as long as earth and sky, and shine as long as sun and moon, until ten thousand years have run out.”

The curse was spoken. The world changed color.

Through the whole of the Nine Provinces, on every immortal mountain and blessed ground, something struck a blow of sound. The immortal isles hanging in the air began to fall, slowly. Every immortal sigil carved into a cliff face went dark. Cultivators sitting in meditation felt their spiritual power seize and scramble inside them, and the higher a man’s cultivation, the harder the blow landed.

On the platform, those ninety-nine immortal-sealing sigils burst into a black so bright it hurt to look at. Out of the base a great black stele rose, slowly. It carried no writing at all, and it gave off a pressure that made the heart crawl. That was Lin Yan’s curse power, his stele forged out of remnant soul and heart’s blood and cultivation, and later men would name it the Heaven-Cursing Stele.

The Stele stood. The curse power spread. It rolled across the Nine Provinces, went up through the cloud seas of the Ninth Heaven, and reached that Immortal Realm hanging there like something half dreamed.

In the Immortal Realm the immortals were drinking and making music. A cold went into their bones. Their immortal bones began to ache, their immortal power began to leak away, and the ancient Golden Immortals who held rank among the immortals spat blood and looked at one another in open terror.

“Who did this? Who dares curse the Immortal Realm?”

“Such curse power. It is shaking the very foundations of the realm.”

“This curse… ten thousand years without a single immortal?”

The immortals cried out and came to their feet, all of them turning to look toward the Nine Provinces, their faces full of fury and fear.

And down in the Northern Wastes, on the Tribulation Platform, the last thread of Lin Yan’s soul came apart as the curse left his mouth. The backwash of his own curse power took his body and scattered it across the rocks as ash, and the ash mixed into the dust. What was left standing was the Stele, alone on the platform, in the wind.

Three thousand seven hundred years of cultivation, gone in a single morning.

The Venerable Yandao, who had followed Heaven and done good, ended as the man who cursed Heaven.

The curse of ten thousand years without an immortal came down from there. It came down on the Nine Provinces. It came down on the Immortal Realm of the Ninth Heaven. It came down on every cultivator alive who wanted to walk the immortal path.

Chapter Two — The Curse Shows Itself, the Nine Provinces Fall into Chaos

The moment Lin Yan’s curse left his lips, the cultivators of the Nine Provinces felt a pressure on them that none of them had ever known.

It landed first on the ones near the peak of Great Ascension, the ones about to cross their tribulation.

Out in the Eastern Continent, on Penglai Immortal Isle, the Island Lord Ling Canglan had reached the summit of Great Ascension, one step from his tribulation. He was sitting in meditation on the lotus dais in the Penglai Immortal Pavilion, working at the last barrier. Black curse power came over him without warning, went through the isle’s grand protective formation, and drove into his dantian.

The immortal power in him came apart. Something struck his dantian like a hammer. Blood came out of him, the lotus dais broke under him, and he hit the floor and lay there with his eyes wide. He could feel his cultivation running backward. From the summit of Great Ascension it dropped to Body Integration, to Void Refining, to Nascent Soul… and stopped at Golden Core, and kept dropping.

“What is this? My cultivation. My cultivation is falling backward.” Ling Canglan screamed for an answer and tried to move his immortal power, and his spirit veins were as good as plugged. He could not draw up a thread of it.

The disciples of Penglai felt the blow too. The Foundation Establishment and Core Formation ones only went dizzy. The Nascent Soul and Spirit Severing ones had their spiritual power come apart, their cultivation dropping hard, and some of those disciples simply burst where they stood.

In Flowing Sands Valley of the Western Desert, the Valley Lord Mo Chen, a Spirit Severing stage cultivator, was refining an immortal pill. The heavenly fire in the Pill Cauldron was roaring and the pill was nearly formed. The curse came in. The fire went out. The cauldron burst and hot slag threw itself across Mo Chen, burning both his hands, and the spiritual power inside him ran the wrong way and came up in blood. Every grain on the pill face broke. What was left in his hands was a failed pill.

Mo Chen looked at the ruined pill. Despair was all that was left on him. “Why? Why would this happen?”

On Myriad Gu Ridge in the Southern Marches, the Ridge Lord Miao Qingcheng, a Void Refining stage cultivator, was driving the ten thousand gu, growing a Gu King. The curse rolled in and the gu went mad, biting each other to pieces, and every one of them died. The Gu King’s embryo broke down into a puddle of blood. The poison the gu left in her came back on her, and her face was ruined, and her cultivation fell from Void Refining to Core Formation.

At Yanmen Pass in the Northern Wastes, the general Qin Cang, a Nascent Soul stage cultivator who owed Lin Yan his life and honored him like a god, was drilling soldiers on the wall. The curse came. His spiritual power was gone in an instant. The spear fell out of his hand. He looked at his hands and did not understand a thing. “Venerable Yandao… what in the world is happening?”

It was not only the great sects. The rogue cultivators took it, and the hermits who had buried themselves in the hills took it. The higher the cultivation, the worse the blow. Great Ascension cultivators lost all of it, Void Refining and Body Integration cultivators fell hard, Nascent Soul and Spirit Severing cultivators had their power come apart, Foundation Establishment and Core Formation cultivators went dizzy, and even the Qi Refining disciples who had only just put a foot on the path felt a weight on them that had no shape, and their progress slowed to a crawl.

The cultivation world of the Nine Provinces went into chaos in a single hour.

Sect Lords called in their disciples, shut the gates, and lit the mountain-guarding formations. The curse came through all of it like water through a net. It passed every formation and crossed the whole of the Nine Provinces and there was nowhere it did not reach.

In the Scripture Pavilion of every great sect the old books on Ascension caught fire by themselves and burned to ash, and left no trace at all. Every magic treasure kept for aid in crossing tribulation — tribulation pills, lightning-warding beads, heart-guarding mirrors — lost its spirit and became ordinary stone.

Even the spirit veins in the earth began to run dry. The spiritual qi of the Nine Provinces was going out at a rate the eye could see. The immortal mountains and blessed grounds that had been thick with it went thin, like any common hillside.

“The spiritual qi in the world is going out.”

“Every book on Ascension in the Scripture Pavilion is burned.”

“Every tribulation treasure has turned to scrap.”

“My cultivation. My cultivation is going backward.”

Fear went through the cultivation world of the Nine Provinces like plague. Every cultivator alive fell into despair. They spent a whole life at it for two things only, to live without end and to ascend. Now the method of Ascension was gone, the treasures were dead, the veins were dry, and cultivation itself ran backward. Staying alive had become the one thing a man could not count on.

Some tried to force a breakthrough anyway, to go against Heaven. The moment they stirred up a Heavenly Tribulation, something with no shape tore them apart. Soul and spirit annihilated, body and form extinguished. Not even a remnant soul left behind.

Some went looking for the source of the curse, meaning to break it. They came to the platform out in the Northern Wastes and saw the black Stele standing at the center of it, and the pressure threw them back before they could come close. Men who did no more than look at the Stele once came away with their souls damaged, raving.

Only then did they learn who had started it. The Venerable Yandao, Lin Yan, the man who had just failed his tribulation.

He had set the curse of ten thousand years without an immortal. He had cut the immortal path for every cultivator alive.

Within a matter of days the cultivators of the Nine Provinces came apart into two camps over him.

Some hated him. He had done it for nothing but his own hurt, cut the immortal path for every soul alive, and destroyed the three thousand seven hundred years of the cultivation world in one stroke. Some pitied him. Three thousand seven hundred years of hard cultivation, a failed tribulation, and a body and soul burned away to nothing, and the despair in a man like that was what had pushed him into a curse that vicious. Some respected him. He had dared to fight Heaven. He had dared to curse earth and sky, and if it took grinding his own bones to powder to make Heaven pay, then he had paid it. Hate him, pity him, respect him, none of it changed the one fact. The immortal path of the Nine Provinces was broken.

Hate him or pity him or respect him, none of it changed one fact. The immortal path of the Nine Provinces was broken.

Ten thousand years, and no immortal.

And the confusion did not stop at the cultivation world. It came down into the mortal one.

Most of the people of the Nine Provinces owed Lin Yan something. They honored him like a god, and when word came that he had failed his tribulation, set a curse, and cut the immortal path, they went up to the Tribulation Platform in the Northern Wastes on their own feet. They raised a stone for him there, burned incense, and prayed.

The immortal path was nothing to them. Living forever was nothing to them. All they knew was that Lin Yan had saved their lives and kept their homes standing. Lin Yan was their god. And if their god had become the man who cursed Heaven, they still honored him. They still loved him.

Some others saw a chance. They helped themselves while the house burned.

Cultivators whose cultivation had crashed carried their grudge out at the rest of the world. They burned, killed, looted, and stopped at nothing. Demons and ghosts, seeing the cultivation world too busy to watch the roads, came down out of the deep hills and up out of the underworld to prey on ordinary people. Across the Nine Provinces, nobody could live.

The Nine Provinces had been a peaceable place. Overnight it turned into a hell on earth.

The magistrates could not suppress it; the counties had no soldiers for it. The sects had no time for it. Families ran, and there were more cries than there were ears.

And up in the Northern Wastes, the black Stele on the platform kept giving off its faint black light. The curse power poured out of it without letup and rolled across the Nine Provinces, and told everyone who could see it one thing: this world Lin Yan had cursed had no immortal path in it any more.

Chapter Three — Exiled from the Immortal Realm, Bitter Is Reincarnation

Lin Yan’s curse did not stop at the Nine Provinces. It went up through the cloud seas of the Ninth Heaven to that Immortal Realm hanging there like something half dreamed.

The Immortal Realm is the place every cultivator spends his life wanting. Spiritual qi in plenty, life without end, and everyone holding rank among the immortals a peerless thing out of heaven and earth.

The curse power arrived and broke the Realm’s quiet in half.

It hit the new immortals first, the ones who had just Ascended. Their immortal bones had not set yet and their immortal power was not yet clean, so the curse cracked the bones, bled the power out of them, and threw them straight down into the mortal world and into the six paths of reincarnation, where ten thousand lives of misery began.

Some fell into the human path and were born poor and common and spent the whole life sick and hungry. Some fell into the animal path and became pigs and dogs and oxen and sheep, to be butchered at another’s convenience. Some fell into the ghost path and became lone wandering ghosts in the underworld, mocked and kicked from one end of it to the other. Some fell into the hell path, into knife-mountains and seas of fire and cauldrons of boiling oil, and never came out again.

The ancient Golden Immortals and the Great Luo immortals held their bones and held their power, so they were not thrown down. The curse still hit them hard. Their palaces began to fall in, their immortal treasures lost their spirit, their power bled away without stopping, and even the length of their lives started to shorten.

The heaven and earth spiritual energy of the Immortal Realm began to dry up under the curse as well. A realm that had been wreathed in immortal vapor went dead and still, like a ruin.

The Jade Emperor sat in Lingxiao Hall with his face the color of iron and looked down at the immortals below him, all of them shaking. “That boy Lin Yan dares raise his hand against his betters and curse my realm. Carry my order. The Four Heavenly Kings and Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King Li will take a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and generals down to the mortal world, take that remnant soul of his, and break it, so that the rest of them learn what it costs.”

“Your Majesty, no.” Taibai Jinxing stepped out of the line at once and bowed. “Lin Yan’s body and spirit are already gone. But the curse takes his remnant soul for its guide, his heart’s blood for its offering, three thousand seven hundred years of cultivation for its base, and it will stand as long as earth and sky and shine as long as sun and moon. Force his remnant soul and you only anger the curse power and make the curse harder, and then the Immortal Realm takes a harder blow yet, and the Nine Provinces are wiped out of existence altogether.”

“Then what would you have me do?” The Jade Emperor held his temper down and asked.

Taibai Jinxing turned it over. “Lin Yan was a man of Heaven’s way. A kind man. Three thousand seven hundred years of it, and then a failed tribulation, and the unwillingness in him is what made this curse. The curse power is strong, but it has a shape we can trace. If we can dissolve the bitterness in him, the curse may loosen. Send one immortal down to the Nine Provinces. Let him find what Lin Yan is holding on to and take it apart. There may be one way through.”

“Dissolve his bitterness.” The Jade Emperor laughed without any warmth in it. “Lin Yan hates this realm for being unjust. He hates Heaven for being blind. That bitterness is in his marrow. You think that comes apart easily? And the Stele stands out there on the platform in the Northern Wastes with the curse power coming off it like a flood. Any immortal of mine who goes down there takes that blow. His cultivation drops. He may be thrown down into the mortal dust and into reincarnation.”

“Your Majesty, there is only one thing left to try,” Taibai Jinxing said. “Let the curse run and the Immortal Realm turns to nothing, and every immortal in it falls into reincarnation and suffers ten thousand lives. Sitting still and waiting for it is worse than one throw.”

The Jade Emperor said nothing. He looked out past Lingxiao Hall at the cloud sea going dim, and there was no strength in him. He ruled the Three Realms, immortals and men and ghosts, and a cultivator who had failed his tribulation had cursed him, and he had not the power to strike back.

A long while later he spoke. “So be it. Have it your way. Who will go down and dissolve Lin Yan’s bitterness?”

The immortals looked at one another. Nobody answered. Every one of them knew what going down meant. It meant standing in the face of that curse power. It meant losing most of what he had. It meant falling into reincarnation and never coming out.

A voice came out of the silence then, clear and cold. “I will go.”

The immortals looked around. A woman in white robes stepped out of the line, unhurried, and she was very beautiful, and she was Chang’e.

Chang’e had been a mortal woman. She had eaten an immortal pill by mistake, Ascended, and gone to live in Guanghan Palace. Back when she was still mortal she had been on the receiving end of Lin Yan’s kindness: when Lin Yan sealed the remnant of the Torch Dragon on the shore of the Eastern Sea, Chang’e had been trapped by it, and he had pulled her out. She had never stopped being grateful.

Now Lin Yan had cursed the world and cut the immortal path, and what she felt was grief and a kind of guilt. If she had been able to do something for him back then, she thought, he might not have ended like this.

“Chang’e, have you thought it through?” The Jade Emperor looked at her. “Go down there and the curse power hits you. Most of your power goes. You may lose your place among the immortals. You may fall into reincarnation.”

“I have thought it through.” Chang’e bowed. “Lin Yan was good to me. Now the bitterness has him, and he has cursed the world, and I will go down and take that bitterness apart, even if I have to break every bone I own.”

The Jade Emperor nodded. “Good. I permit it. I give you the Immortal Lotus Seat, which will hold off some of the curse power, and the Soul-Seeking Mirror, which will find Lin Yan’s remnant soul and what he is holding on to. Remember one thing. You cannot break this curse by force. It comes apart only through feeling. And if it cannot be done, come back up at once. Do not force it.”

“I obey.”

Chang’e took the Immortal Lotus Seat and the Soul-Seeking Mirror and went out of Lingxiao Hall as a streak of white light, flying for the Nine Provinces.

When she came through the cloud seas of the Ninth Heaven and set foot in the Nine Provinces, the curse power came at her in a wave. The Lotus Seat went dark and lost most of what it had. The Soul-Seeking Mirror began to shake hard and its face went cloudy. Seven tenths of her immortal power drained out of her in the time it took to notice, and she fell from Golden Immortal to Nascent Soul stage, and the curse tore her white robes and opened them with lines of blood.

She held the pain down and came down out of the sky near the platform in the Northern Wastes, and raised her eyes to the Stele standing at its center, and could not move. There was no writing on the stone at all. What came off it was a pressure that made the heart crawl, and it was Lin Yan’s bitterness, his unwillingness, his measureless hate for Heaven and for the Immortal Realm.

Chang’e took out the Soul-Seeking Mirror and tried to find his remnant soul. The face of it was a mess of nothing with black curse power drifting through it, and there was no soul to be seen.

Then she understood. His remnant soul had gone into the Stele long ago. It was one thing with the curse. To take the bitterness apart she would have to go inside the Stele and find what he was holding on to.

The pressure off that Stele was too much. At the cultivation she had now she could not get near it.

Chang’e let out a breath and turned and left the platform. Bitterness like this could not be rushed. It would have to be worked at from the outside. She decided to go first to his home, the Azure Cloud Sect, and see whether anything of what he held on to was still there, and whether the way to take it apart was in it.

Back in the Immortal Realm the immortals watched the direction she had gone, and every face was full of hoping. Hoping she could take Lin Yan’s bitterness apart, break the curse, and let the Immortal Realm go quiet again.

They did not know. A curse of ten thousand years without an immortal, once it is spoken, does not come apart easily. Chang’e going down was only the start of the calamity, and the fates of the Nine Provinces and the Immortal Realm had already been tied together by Lin Yan’s words. For the ten thousand years to come they would take the suffering he had brought on them together.

Chapter Four — Azure Cloud Falls Silent, an Old Friend Is Lost

The Azure Cloud Sect stands on Azure Cloud Mountain in the Eastern Continent of the Nine Provinces. It is one of the great names of the Nine Provinces, and it was Lin Yan’s home, the place he lived in from the age of six to the age of three thousand, near three thousand years in all.

Once the Azure Cloud Sect had been wreathed in immortal vapor, with thousands of disciples, its gates standing open to anyone in the world who wanted the Dao. It had been the standard the whole cultivation world of the Nine Provinces measured itself against. Now it was a dead place.

The gates were shut. The mountain-guarding formation was still lit, but it had gone dim long ago, and the lines of it were covered in cracks like a candle guttering in wind. The stone lions on either side of the gate had once looked ready to bite. Moss covered them now. Their jaws were split and the light was gone out of their eyes, and they were two stone blocks.

Weeds had taken the stone steps up to the gate. The steps were cracked through and in places had fallen in and showed the earth underneath. The seekers who used to come up them in a line were nowhere. A few crows sat in a dead tree beside the steps and called, hoarse, and made the place worse.

Chang’e came down as a streak of white light outside the gate of the Azure Cloud Sect and looked at what was in front of her, and had nothing to say. She had come here once, a thousand years ago. The Azure Cloud Sect then had been a bright, loud, crowded thing. This was what was left.

She raised a hand and pushed at the gate. It gave a long creak and swung open. Nothing stopped her.

Inside the gate it was wrecked from one wall to the other.

The square that had been smooth was all broken stone and weeds. The training platform at the center of it had fallen in, and the sword-testing stones on it were in pieces on the ground. The side rooms had holes in their roofs, cracks in their walls, and broken windows, and the tables and stools inside had rotted down to a heap of splinters.

The Nine-Bend Bridge to the Inner Sect was broken across the middle. The lotus pond under it was dry, the bottom of it all mud, and there was not a shadow of a lotus left.

The halls of the Inner Sect were worse. Half the roof of Azure Cloud Hall was gone. The god-statue inside had fallen and lay with its head off, its gold leaf peeling, thick with dust. The doors of the Scripture Pavilion stood open. Most of the books in it were ash on the floor. A few common primers for joining the sect had survived, and they were dusty and missing pages.

The disciples’ quarters were silent. Doors stood open on rotted bedding and fallen stools and dust, and there was no breath of anyone in them.

Chang’e walked the mountain road of the Azure Cloud Sect at an even pace. The weeds whispered under her feet and the sound went up the dead mountain and came back, and it was too loud. She could feel that the spiritual qi of the sect was gone. This had been one of the richest places in the Nine Provinces. Now there was not a thread of qi in it, only a thin curse power hanging in the air.

She knew why. All of it was Lin Yan’s curse.

The Azure Cloud Sect was his home. He had lived here near three thousand years. It had been the softest place in him. Now, because of his curse, it was this: broken and silent.

Chang’e went around to the back hills, where he had cultivated, and where he and Su Qingyuan had met and come to know each other.

The bamboo grove behind the hills had died. The leaves had fallen and gone back into the earth, and the bare stalks stood up like a row of lonely guards. Clear Heart Lake beside the grove was dry, the pebbles at the bottom green with moss, and the stone table and stools by the water had fallen over and were thick with dust.

Beside the stone table was a small grave. There was no writing on the stone, only a bunch of white chrysanthemums gone dead, stuck in the ground in front of it. Someone had been here to tend it.

Chang’e knew whose grave it was. Su Qingyuan’s.

The woman who had brewed tea for Lin Yan three hundred years, who had fallen ill of missing him and died, and who was the deepest thing he held on to.

Chang’e walked to the grave and brushed the dust off the stone. Grief sat on her face and would not lift. She had seen Su Qingyuan once. She had been very beautiful then, gentle and quiet, and her eyes had been full of Lin Yan. Now she lay here with the yellow earth.

She could feel something coming off the grave, a thin obsession. It was Su Qingyuan’s love for Lin Yan, and it was Lin Yan’s guilt over her and his missing her.

Chang’e took out the Soul-Seeking Mirror and turned it on the grave. The face of it was not nothing any more. A blur of light and shadow came up in it: a woman in white robes sitting at the stone table brewing clear tea, gentle in every line of her face, and across from her a young cultivator in a black Daoist robe with his head down over the sword in his hands, half smiling.

That was Lin Yan and Su Qingyuan as they had been.

The image in the mirror cleared. Chang’e could hear the woman’s voice, soft. “Lin Yan. You have been at the sword long enough. Sit and drink your tea.”

The young cultivator looked up, took the cup, and drank it off. “Qingyuan. Thank you.”

“What is there to thank me for.” She smiled. “You want nothing but the immortal path. It is long, though. Take care of yourself.”

The young cultivator nodded. “I will. When I ascend, I will come back for you. You will stand in the ranks of the immortals too, and live without end.”

Something glad went through the woman’s eyes, and then she shook her head. “I do not want to live forever. I do not want a place among the immortals. I want you safe and everything to go well with you. When you get tired, turn around and look. I will be there.”

There the image stopped. The face of the mirror clouded over again. Only specks of black curse power moved in it.

Chang’e put the Soul-Seeking Mirror away and what she felt was mostly pity. Lin Yan’s guilt over Su Qingyuan and his missing her was one of the deepest things he held on to. For the immortal path he had cut her off, and then the path was broken and the woman was dead, and the guilt and the missing her had become a wound in him that would not close, and one part of his bitterness.

Su Qingyuan was not all of it. There was his master. There was the Azure Cloud Sect. There were the people of the Nine Provinces.

Three thousand seven hundred years of cultivation, and it was not only for his own path. It was to pay back the master who had raised him, to raise the Azure Cloud Sect back up, to shelter the people of the Nine Provinces. He had failed his tribulation and been burned out of body and soul. He never paid the master back. He never raised the sect. And because of his curse the Azure Cloud Sect was this ruin, and the people of the Nine Provinces were drowning in it. That guilt made the bitterness deeper still.

Chang’e let out a breath. This was not going to be easy. His bitterness came out of unwillingness, out of guilt, out of a hate for Heaven and the Immortal Realm that had no bottom. Taking it apart meant finding every single thing he held on to and taking each one apart. And that, by what measure?

She raised a new grave-marker at Su Qingyuan’s grave and cut five characters into it: the grave of Su Qingyuan. She picked wildflowers on the hillside and laid them at the stone, and then turned and went up toward the Master’s Hall of the Azure Cloud Sect.

His master was still in the sect, she knew. Perhaps more of what Lin Yan held on to could be found there. Perhaps the way to take it apart could.

And in the Master’s Hall, an old man with white hair sat cross-legged on a rush mat with his eyes shut. That was Lin Yan’s master, the former Sect Lord of the Azure Cloud Sect, Xuanjizi.

Xuanjizi had reached the summit of Great Ascension long ago, one step from his tribulation. When Lin Yan’s curse came, he had let his own cultivation go on purpose. From the summit of Great Ascension down to Qi Refining stage, so that he could stay in this broken sect and keep Lin Yan’s home, and keep Su Qingyuan’s grave, and keep what was left of Lin Yan.

He felt Chang’e’s presence, opened his eyes slowly, and looked at the door, and there was no surprise in his face at all. It was as if he had known she was coming.

Chapter Five — A Master Speaks, the Obsession Takes Root

Dust hung in the Master’s Hall. The god-statue in it had fallen long ago. One worn rush mat stood at the center of the floor and Xuanjizi sat on it, white-haired, dried thin, his Daoist robe old and grey with dust. His eyes were untroubled. Nothing in the world seemed to be any business of his.

Chang’e went into the hall at an unhurried pace and bowed to Xuanjizi. “Chang’e of the immortal court greets Master Xuanjizi.”

Xuanjizi lifted his eyes to her. “Someone from the Immortal Realm. What does it want with me?”

His voice was dry and rough, and there was a weight in it that did not allow argument. He had lost every scrap of cultivation and was a Qi Refining cultivator now, and he still carried himself like a grandmaster.

“Master, the Immortal Realm is suffering under Fellow Daoist Lin Yan’s curse,” Chang’e said. “Immortal power is bleeding out of us. Immortal bones are breaking. Many immortals have been thrown down into the mortal dust and into reincarnation. The Jade Emperor has sent me down to find what Fellow Daoist Lin Yan holds on to and take his bitterness apart, in the hope that the curse will loosen and the Nine Provinces and the Immortal Realm can both be quiet again.”

Xuanjizi heard it out. The silence ran a while. Then he said, slowly: “Take his bitterness apart. Do you know how hard that is? Yan’er’s bitterness is down in his marrow. It stands with earth and sky and shines with sun and moon. It does not come apart because someone asks it to.”

“Master, Fellow Daoist Lin Yan walked in Heaven’s way. He was a kind man. If his tribulation had not failed, if the unwillingness were not in him, he would never have set a curse that vicious,” Chang’e said. “I know it is not easy. But there is nothing else left to try. Tell me what else he holds on to, Master. I will spend everything I have on taking them apart one by one.”

Xuanjizi sighed and looked out past the hall at the sky, and his face was all grief. “That boy has had it hard since he was small. I carried him in at six. Ordinary aptitude, and nobody worked harder or held on longer than he did. His Dao was Heaven’s way. It was the way of doing good. He kept faith with Heaven, honored the gods, believed that Heaven rewards diligence and good is repaid with good. And then Heaven let him down and the Immortal Realm threw him away. Do you think one word, dissolve, wipes that out?”

“What he holds on to is a long list. Qingyuan is one. The Azure Cloud Sect is two. The people of the Nine Provinces are three. And the deepest of them is his Dao, the thing he held to his whole life: following Heaven, doing good.”

“Three thousand seven hundred years of it, and he never did one thing that injured the innocent. He cut down demons and ferried people out of misery and sheltered the Nine Provinces, and he thought that if he held to his Dao he would walk the immortal path. What he got was his body and soul burned away. His Dao was denied by Heaven. His holding on was ignored by the Immortal Realm. That is the wound at the bottom of him, and that is where the bitterness comes from.”

Something went through Chang’e. She understood at last. It was not only the failed tribulation. It was that the Dao he had held to for a whole life had been thrown out. He had trusted in Heaven and Heaven was unjust. He had honored the gods and the gods had no honor. He had kept to kindness and kindness paid him nothing. That was the collapse, and out of the collapse he had laid that curse down.

“Then how does it come apart, Master?” Chang’e asked.

Xuanjizi shook his head. “His Dao was denied by Heaven. To take that apart, Heaven would have to admit his Dao. The Immortal Realm would have to apologize to him. Heaven has no constancy and the Immortal Realm is proud. Do you think either of them admits a mistake? Do you think either of them apologizes to a cultivator who failed his tribulation?”

“And more than that. The curse takes his remnant soul for its guide, his heart’s blood for its offering, three thousand seven hundred years of cultivation for its base. It stands with earth and sky and shines with sun and moon. Once spoken, it does not come apart. Even if Heaven admitted his Dao and the Immortal Realm apologized, his bitterness might not all go, and the curse might still be standing.”

Chang’e said nothing. Xuanjizi’s words were a bucket of cold water over what hope she had. He was telling her the truth. Heaven has no constancy. The Immortal Realm is proud. Getting Heaven to admit a mistake and the Immortal Realm to bow and apologize was very close to impossible.

And still she could not give up. Give up, and the Immortal Realm and the Nine Provinces took ten thousand years of suffering inside the curse and nothing else.

“Master, even if the hope is thin, let me try,” Chang’e said. “One thread of hope and I will not let go of it. Tell me the other things he holds on to. I will start with those and work his bitterness down from the edges.”

Xuanjizi looked at her, and something like approval crossed his face. “You are a little like him, you know. Both of you hold on. Very well. I will tell you the other things.”

“What he holds on to with Qingyuan is guilt and missing her. For the immortal path he cut her off, and the path broke and she was gone, and the guilt in him has never drained. If you want that one taken apart, let Qingyuan’s soul rest. Let him know she never blamed him.”

“What he holds on to with the Azure Cloud Sect is a debt and a wish to raise it up. I carried him in as a child and the sect fed and taught him, and what he wanted in his life was not only his own path. It was to raise the Azure Cloud Sect up and make it the first sect in the Nine Provinces. If you want that one taken apart, bring the sect back to what it was. Let him know his home never withered.”

“What he holds on to with the people of the Nine Provinces is guardianship and duty. He cut down demons, ferried people out of misery, sheltered the Nine Provinces, and took the safety of those people as his own charge. If you want that one taken apart, let the people of the Nine Provinces have their peace again. Let him know the ground he guarded was never let down.”

“Those three look simple. They are as hard as climbing to heaven. Qingyuan is dead and nobody knows where her soul has gone. Letting her rest, do you know what that takes? The Azure Cloud Sect is a ruin with dry veins. Bringing it back is worse than hard. The Nine Provinces have nobody living well in them and demons walking the roads, and giving those people peace again is a thousand dangers and ten thousand risks.”

“And yet, if you can do those three things, Yan’er’s bitterness may loosen, and there may be one thread of hope for the curse.”

Chang’e nodded. “Rest easy, Master. I will spend everything I have on those three. Even if I have to break every bone I own.”

Xuanjizi brought a small jade pendant out of his robe. It was blue-green, with an azure cloud flower cut into it, the mark of the Azure Cloud Sect, and a thin spiritual qi came off it. It was a protective pendant, picked up by chance when he was young, and it would hold off some of the evil things and some of the curse power.

He held it out to Chang’e. “This is the Azure Cloud Pendant. Take it. It will hold off some of the curse power and some of the evil in the world, and it may be of use to you. What Yan’er holds on to comes out of love, not hate. If you want his bitterness gone, answer hate with love and answer resentment with feeling. Do not try to break it by force. Force it and you get the opposite of what you want.”

Chang’e took the Azure Cloud Pendant. It was cool in her hand, and a thin spiritual qi went into her and eased the meridians the curse had damaged. She bowed to Xuanjizi again. “Thank you for the gift, Master. I will not fail what you have asked of me.”

Xuanjizi waved a hand. “Go on, then. It is a long road. Be careful. Yan’er has cursed the world, but there is nothing rotten at the bottom of him. There is still one thread of light in him. Light that thread and perhaps everything can still turn.”

Chang’e nodded, turned, and left the Master’s Hall, and walked out of the Azure Cloud Sect.

Outside the sect she raised her head to the blue sky, and resolve was all she had. She knew what the road looked like. The three things Xuanjizi had named, taking Lin Yan’s bitterness apart, breaking the thing he had cursed the world with — very close to impossible.

But she could not give up. For the immortals of the Immortal Realm, for the people of the Nine Provinces, and for the man who had held to following Heaven and doing good his whole life and been let down by Heaven, she had to keep going.

The first thing she had to do was find Su Qingyuan’s soul and let her rest, and take apart Lin Yan’s guilt over her and his missing her.

Chang’e took out the Soul-Seeking Mirror and drove her immortal power into it again. A pale white soul-shape came up on the face of the mirror. It was Su Qingyuan. Her soul was drifting in the back hills of the Azure Cloud Sect and would not leave. She was waiting for Lin Yan.

Chang’e’s heart lifted. She turned into a streak of white light and flew for the back hills of the Azure Cloud Sect.

The first step in taking Lin Yan’s bitterness apart was about to begin, and she knew it.

And out in the Northern Wastes, the Heaven-Cursing Stele on the platform gave a small shiver and put out a thin thread of black light, as if it had felt something. Inside that light there seemed to be a faint glimmer of something bright, and it was gone again.

Chapter Six — Qingyuan's Soul, the Ache of Longing

In the back hills of the Azure Cloud Sect, the bamboo dead around her and Clear Heart Lake dry, a pale white soul-shape stood quietly by Su Qingyuan’s grave. She wore white, and her face was as beautiful as it had ever been, only white, and her eyes empty, and the missing him and the loneliness coming off her had no bottom to it.

That was Su Qingyuan’s soul. When she died, what she was holding on to was too heavy for her to step into reincarnation. She had been drifting in the back hills of the Azure Cloud Sect ever since, keeping her own grave, keeping the place where she and Lin Yan had met and come to know each other, waiting for him to come back.

She had waited three hundred years. What came instead was the word that Lin Yan had failed his tribulation, been burned out of body and soul, and laid his curse on the world.

Her soul had been weak to begin with, and under his curse power it went thinner still, and there was no hour when it might not come apart and be gone.

Chang’e came down as a streak of white light beside the soul-shape and looked at her standing there alone, and what she felt was all pity.

“Miss Qingyuan,” Chang’e said, quietly.

The soul-shape turned slowly. Something puzzled came into her eyes. She could feel the immortal air on Chang’e and could not work out why an immortal from the Immortal Realm would be standing here.

“Who are you?” Su Qingyuan’s voice was thin and far off, like willow catkins in wind, ready to go out.

“I am Chang’e. I come from the Immortal Realm.” Chang’e kept her voice soft. “The Jade Emperor sent me down to take Fellow Daoist Lin Yan’s bitterness apart and break what he laid down.”

At the name Lin Yan, something came into Su Qingyuan’s eyes, a thick missing him and something worse underneath it. “Lin Yan… how is he?”

“Fellow Daoist Lin Yan failed his tribulation and his body and spirit are gone,” Chang’e said. “His remnant soul has gone into the Heaven-Cursing Stele and become one thing with the curse. What is in him is too bitter to name, and that is where the curse came from. And a great part of that bitterness comes out of his guilt over you and his missing you.”

The grief on her face deepened. “He never owed me anything. What guilt? I knew what he wanted from the first day. I knew he wanted nothing but to ascend. I never blamed him. I never held it against him. All I ever wanted was for him to be safe and for things to go well with him.”

“And yet he cut you off for the immortal path, and you fell ill of missing him and died, and the guilt in him has never drained,” Chang’e said. “Since he set the curse, what he holds on to has grown heavier. If you could tell him yourself that you never blamed him, it might take that guilt and that missing him apart, and his bitterness might loosen.”

Su Qingyuan said nothing. Her soul-shape trembled a little in the wind and her eyes were full of a fight. She wanted to see Lin Yan. She wanted to tell him with her own mouth that she had never blamed him. And her soul was too weak. She could not get near the Heaven-Cursing Stele. She could not even get near the platform, and she could not stand in front of his remnant soul.

“I… I want to see him, and I cannot.” There was a catch in her voice. “My soul is too weak. The pressure off that Stele is too much. I cannot get close. I cannot even get close to the Tribulation Platform.”

Chang’e looked at her and there was nothing she could do. Su Qingyuan was telling the truth. As her soul was now, the Stele was out of the question; the Tribulation Platform itself would tear her apart and scatter her.

And if Su Qingyuan could not tell Lin Yan herself that she had never blamed him, then the guilt and the missing her could not be taken apart, and his bitterness would not loosen.

Chang’e thought for a while, and then it came to her: the Azure Cloud Pendant Xuanjizi had given her. It held off some of the curse power and some of the evil in the world. It might hold Su Qingyuan’s soul together long enough to get near the Stele.

Chang’e brought out the Azure Cloud Pendant and drove her immortal power through it, feeding its spiritual qi into the soul-shape. The blue-green light of the pendant wrapped around Su Qingyuan’s white shape, and it grew a little clearer than it had been, and some of the loneliness and the weakness went out of her.

“Miss Qingyuan, this Azure Cloud Pendant will hold off some of the curse power and some of the evil in the world. I will drive it with my immortal power and hold your soul inside it and take you north to the platform, to see Fellow Daoist Lin Yan,” Chang’e said. “Only this. The pressure off the Stele is very great. Even with the pendant you can only be near it a short while. Stay too long and the curse tears your soul apart — Soul Scattering, nothing left. Have you thought it through?”

Something hard came into Su Qingyuan’s eyes. “I have thought it through. One instant is enough. I want to see him, and tell him with my own mouth that I never blamed him.”

For Lin Yan she would pay anything. Even being torn apart and scattered was a price she would pay.

Chang’e nodded and said no more. She drove her immortal power, and the blue-green light of the Azure Cloud Pendant closed tight around the soul-shape, and the two of them went north for the platform together, Su Qingyuan held inside the light the whole way.

The whole way the curse power was thick in the air, and the blue-green light of the pendant was eaten at by it and went dimmer and dimmer, and Chang’e’s immortal power went with it. Fine sweat came out on her forehead. She set her teeth and kept on, and kept flying for the platform.

Some days later Chang’e brought Su Qingyuan’s soul to that platform in the north.

The Heaven-Cursing Stele stood on the platform without moving. The black stone gave off a pressure like a flood and curse power so thick it could be felt on the skin, and the whole platform was under a black mist, and the place looked like something that had died badly.

Chang’e came down below the base of the platform and looked at the Stele standing there within reach, and could not move. The pressure was stronger than it had been the first time she came. The curse power was thicker.

“Miss Qingyuan. Are you ready? We are going up,” Chang’e said, quietly.

The soul-shape inside the pendant’s light nodded, a little. Her eyes were all hoping and all set.

Chang’e took a breath and drove what was left of her immortal power. The blue-green light of the Azure Cloud Pendant blazed up one last time and wrapped Su Qingyuan’s soul in it, and Chang’e walked her up toward the center of the platform, step by step.

Every step brought the pressure off the Stele down on her harder. It stopped the breath in her. Her meridians began to ache and blood came to the corner of her mouth, and the blue-green light of the pendant went dim at a rate she could watch.

The soul-shape began to tremble. The pain must have been enormous. She did not step back. Her eyes were fixed on the Stele at the center of the platform and missing him was all that was in them.

At last Chang’e brought her to the front of the Heaven-Cursing Stele.

The pressure off the Stele reached its height. The blue-green light of the Azure Cloud Pendant broke into fragments and scattered as points of green, and something threw Chang’e back off her feet. She came down hard and blood came out of her and her immortal power was gone completely, and she could not lift a finger.

And Su Qingyuan’s soul, with nothing holding it now, stood in the full curse power and pressure of the Stele. It began to come apart fast and to go thin.

She did not step back. She raised her head and looked up at the Stele and spent the last of her strength on two syllables, said quietly. “Lin Yan…”

A quiet call, and it hit inside the Stele like thunder.

The Heaven-Cursing Stele began to shake hard. The black stone threw off a black light that hurt to look at, and a great force came pouring out of it toward Su Qingyuan’s soul.

And out of that black light, slowly, a blurred soul-shape in black came up out of the Stele. It wore a black Daoist robe. Its face was dried thin. Its eyes were all hate and despair — and then it saw Su Qingyuan, and the hate and the despair went out of it in an instant, and what came in was guilt and missing her.

That was Lin Yan’s remnant soul. It had gone into the Stele and become one thing with the curse, and when it heard Su Qingyuan call, it still broke the grip of the curse power and showed itself.

“Qingyuan…” His voice shook and was hoarse and full of guilt. “It is me. I am sorry…”

Chapter Seven — Longing Ends, Resentment Loosens

Lin Yan’s remnant soul stared at the sky, and his eyes held nothing but holding on, and grief. The guilt was out of him now, and the self-reproach, and the bitterness and the hate. What was left was all gentleness, and missing her.

And then the Heaven-Cursing Stele began to shake hard, and the black stone threw off a black light that hurt to look at. After that the light began to go out, slowly, and the pressure and the curse power coming off the Stele began to ease.

The guilt and the missing her he had carried for Su Qingyuan had at last come apart. His bitterness had loosened with it, and by no small amount.

Not far away, Chang’e got herself up off the ground and looked at what was happening, and what she felt was all relief. The first thing Lin Yan held on to was taken apart, and she had done it.

“Fellow Daoist Lin Yan,” she said, quietly.

Lin Yan’s remnant soul turned, slowly, and looked at her. The hate that had been in his eyes was not there. What was left was a thin distance. “Someone from the Immortal Realm. You came to take my curse apart.”

His voice was still hoarse and it was much quieter than before, and it did not have that flood of bitterness and hate running under it.

Chang’e nodded. “Fellow Daoist Lin Yan, the Immortal Realm and the Nine Provinces are both in misery past telling because of your curse. Immortals without number have been thrown down into the mortal dust and into reincarnation. Cultivators without number have lost everything and nobody can live. The Jade Emperor sent me down to find what you hold on to and take your bitterness apart, in the hope that the curse will loosen and the Immortal Realm and the Nine Provinces can both have some peace.”

Lin Yan said nothing for a while. “My bitterness comes from Heaven being unjust and the Immortal Realm having no honor in it. It comes from the Dao I held to all my life being thrown out. Su Qingyuan was one part of that. Taking all of it apart is not the work of a word.”

“I know it is not,” Chang’e said. “And I will try anyway. For the immortals of the Immortal Realm, for the people of the Nine Provinces, and for you, Fellow Daoist Lin Yan. You held to following Heaven and doing good your whole life. You did nothing wrong. You should not have your own heart eaten out of you by bitterness and hate.”

Lin Yan looked at her and something complicated went across his face. “And how do you mean to take the rest apart?”

“There is the debt you owe the Azure Cloud Sect and what you wanted to make of it. There is the charge you took on for the people of the Nine Provinces and the guarding of them,” Chang’e said. “I will bring the Azure Cloud Sect back to what it was. I will give the people of the Nine Provinces their peace. I will see your Dao, your kindness, your holding on, kept in the memory of heaven and earth and spoken of by the people who live under them.”

Lin Yan’s remnant soul went still. “The Azure Cloud Sect is a ruin with dry veins. Bringing it back is as hard as climbing to heaven. The Nine Provinces have demons walking the roads and nobody living well. Giving those people peace is worse than a thousand dangers. Can you do it?”

“I can do it,” Chang’e said, and there was nothing soft in it. “I will do it if I have to break every bone I own.”

Lin Yan looked at the resolve in her eyes and something moved in him. He remembered himself at that age, just as set as this, ready to pay any price for the immortal path and for the people of the Nine Provinces.

“Good,” he said, slowly. “I will give you a hundred years. Bring the Azure Cloud Sect back to what it was, give the people of the Nine Provinces their peace, and I will consider loosening the curse.”

The words were out of his mouth and his remnant soul went back into the Stele as a streak of black light. The shaking of the Stele stopped. The black stone gave off a faint black light and the pressure and the curse power settled at a lower level and stayed there.

Chang’e’s heart lifted. Lin Yan was willing to give her a hundred years. That meant there was one thread of hope in taking the curse apart.

She bowed to the Stele. “Thank you, Fellow Daoist Lin Yan. I will not fail this.”

Then she turned into a streak of white light and left the platform behind. The first thing she had to do was go to the Azure Cloud Sect and bring it back to what it was, and take apart what Lin Yan held on to there.

And up in Lingxiao Hall in the Immortal Realm, the Jade Emperor and Taibai Jinxing felt the curse power ease, and their faces lit.

“It is easing.” Taibai Jinxing could hardly keep still. “Fairy Chang’e has found a way after all.”

The Jade Emperor let out a long breath. “Good. Good. Good. If the curse will loosen, the Immortal Realm is saved.”

The immortals broke out cheering, every face full of hope. They knew that if Chang’e could do what Lin Yan asked, and take his bitterness apart, the thing he had cursed Heaven with might really be broken.

They did not know what a hundred years would be for Chang’e. Bringing the Azure Cloud Sect back and giving the people of the Nine Provinces their peace was no small thing, and in those hundred years she would meet dangers without number and might pay with her life.

And the Heaven-Cursing Stele stood where it was on the platform in the Northern Wastes, the black stone giving off its faint black light, as if it were waiting for the answer at the end of a hundred years, and for what Lin Yan would decide.

Chapter Eight — Azure Cloud Rises Again, the Qi Returns

Chang’e left the platform and went back to the Azure Cloud Sect without stopping. The sect was still a dead place. The gates were shut, the spiritual qi was gone, and Xuanjizi was the only one in it, keeping the Master’s Hall and keeping Lin Yan’s home.

Chang’e found Xuanjizi and told him what she and Lin Yan had agreed. Xuanjizi heard it out and what came into his face was relief. “A hundred years. Short. It will do. If the Azure Cloud Sect is to come back, the first thing is the spiritual qi of Azure Cloud Mountain.”

“Azure Cloud Mountain was one of the richest places for spiritual qi in the whole of the Nine Provinces. There is a spirit vein ten thousand years old at the foot of it, and Lin Yan’s curse power has choked it, so the qi cannot come up. If you want the qi back on this mountain, you have to clear that vein.”

Chang’e nodded. “Then tell me where the vein is, Master.”

“The ten thousand-year spirit vein runs through the belly of Azure Cloud Mountain. The way into it is in the sealed chamber under Azure Cloud Hall,” Xuanjizi said. “Only the chamber is full of Lin Yan’s curse power, and there are restrictions in it without number. At the cultivation you have now, getting in and clearing that vein is not going to be easy.”

“I know,” Chang’e said. “However hard it is, I will do it.”

Xuanjizi brought a bronze key out of his robe and held it out. “The key to the chamber. In there are the vein-guarding formation diagrams my forebears in this sect left, generation after generation. They may help you clear the vein.”

Chang’e took the bronze key and bowed. “Thank you, Master.”

She went then to Azure Cloud Hall. The hall was wrecked, the god-statue down, dust everywhere. She found a hidden catch in the floor, put the bronze key into it, and the floor split slowly and showed a black opening, the way down into the sealed chamber.

Chang’e took a breath, turned into a streak of white light, and went in.

The passage was black and thick with curse power. Every step she took met a resistance that pushed back on her. Her immortal power drained as she went, and the wounds on her began to ache.

At the end of the passage was a great chamber. The walls of it were covered in restriction glyphs packed one against the next, each giving off a thin black curse power, Lin Yan’s. At the center of the chamber was a great vein spring, and it was packed with black silt, and the qi was held down under it and could not come up.

Beside the spring stood an old stone tablet, and cut into it were the vein-guarding formation diagrams of every generation of Azure Cloud Sect masters.

Chang’e walked to the spring and looked at the silt and at the glyphs on the walls, and her face was set. To clear the vein she would first have to break the glyphs on the walls and then get the silt out of the spring.

She brought out the Azure Cloud Pendant Xuanjizi had given her and drove her immortal power into it. The blue-green light wrapped around her body and held off the curse. Then she took out the Soul-Seeking Mirror and turned the immortal power in it into a keen blade of light and struck at the glyphs on the wall.

A crack of sound.

The blade struck the glyph and made a small crack of sound. The black curse power in the glyph burst out as a black light and met the blade, and the blade broke. Something threw Chang’e back and blood came out of her.

“That is a restriction and a half.” Her heart dropped. She had not thought Lin Yan’s curse power would be this strong, strong enough that the power of the Soul-Seeking Mirror could not cut through it.

She could not give up. The vein had to be cleared. Azure Cloud Mountain had to have its qi back. The sect had to come back.

Chang’e wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and drove her immortal power again. This time she ran the qi of the Azure Cloud Pendant and the Soul-Seeking Mirror’s own force together into one blade, keener than the first, and struck at the glyphs on the wall.

A great crash.

The blade and the glyph met and the noise of it went through the chamber. The black curse power on the glyph was torn open and the glyph began to go dim and lose its shine.

Chang’e’s heart lifted and she kept driving. Blade after blade went at the glyphs. One by one the restriction glyphs on the wall were broken and the black curse power thinned and went.

Half a month later every restriction glyph on the wall of the chamber had been broken, and the black curse power was gone out of the chamber altogether.

Then Chang’e started on the silt in the spring. It was not common silt. It was filth the curse had got into, and to touch it was to have the curse eat at you and your soul damaged.

Chang’e did not take it lightly. She wrapped both hands in the qi of the Azure Cloud Pendant and began to take the silt out of the spring, a little at a time.

The silt stank so that it turned the stomach, and the curse power ate at the pendant’s qi the whole while, and Chang’e’s immortal power went fast. Her face went whiter and whiter and the wounds on her got worse.

She set her teeth and kept at it. Day after day, month after month. At the end of three months the silt was out of the spring, all of it.

When the last of it came away, a thick spiritual qi came surging up out of the spring, like water out of a well, and filled the chamber in a moment. Then it ran up the passage and out into Azure Cloud Hall and spread over the whole of Azure Cloud Mountain.

The dead trees on the mountain began to put out new shoots. The dry streams began to run. The broken buildings began to mend under the qi, slowly. The light came back into the eyes of the stone lions on either side of the gate, and they had their old look again.

The Azure Cloud Sect had its qi back.

Word of it went across the Nine Provinces in no time. The disciples who had left the sect came back. Cultivators whose cultivation had crashed under the curse came to the mountain too, to sit in that qi and get themselves back.

Chang’e also brought out the immortal seeds she had carried down from the Immortal Realm and planted the azure cloud flowers the sect was known for. Under the qi they grew fast and came up all over Azure Cloud Mountain, and the scent of them went everywhere and lifted the heart.

She opened a lecture hall in the sect and taught cultivation herself, and helped the ones who had lost so much sit back down and start again. She wrote new rules for the sect: the gates open to anyone in the world who wants the Dao, high aptitude or low, so long as his heart is set on the light and he holds to what is right, he may join the Azure Cloud Sect.

Under her the disciples of the Azure Cloud Sect multiplied and the sect grew strong, and inside five years it was one of the great names of the Nine Provinces again, busier and brighter than it had been in Lin Yan’s day.

Xuanjizi sat in the Master’s Hall and watched it happen, and there was relief all over his face. “Yan’er. Your home has come back.”

And the Heaven-Cursing Stele out on the Northern Wastes platform gave another small shiver, and the black light coming off it went fainter. What Lin Yan held on to about the sect had begun to loosen.

Chang’e stood on the summit of Azure Cloud Mountain and looked north, and resolve was all she had. The second thing was done. What came next was to go out across the Nine Provinces and cut down the demons and shelter the people and give them their peace, and take apart what Lin Yan held on to about guarding them.

She took a breath, turned into a streak of white light, and left the Azure Cloud Sect, flying out across the Nine Provinces.

She knew this would be the harder road. She could not give up. She had to keep going, for the promise at the end of a hundred years, for taking Lin Yan’s bitterness apart, for breaking the curse at all.

Chapter Nine — Demons Cut Down, the People Shielded

After she left the Azure Cloud Sect, Chang’e began to travel the Nine Provinces, cutting down demons and sheltering the people.

By then the Nine Provinces were overrun. Cultivators who had lost most of what they had carried their grudge out into the world to burn and kill and loot, and they stopped at nothing. The demons and ghosts that came down out of the deep hills and up out of the underworld did worse to ordinary people, and there was no end to what the people of the Nine Provinces had to bear.

Chang’e went first to the coastal lands of the Eastern Continent. This was where Lin Yan had sealed the remnant of the Torch Dragon. The curse had woken it again. It was churning the sea, throwing up waves that came down on the coastal cities and drowned them, and people without number had been driven off their land or gone under the water.

When Chang’e got there the remnant of the Torch Dragon had taken the shape of an enormous black dragon circling over the water, throwing black poison mist out of its mouth, and wherever the mist went the sea went black and the fish died and the people who breathed it died.

Chang’e looked at it and fury took her whole face. She brought out the Soul-Seeking Mirror and drove her immortal power into it, and a white light shot out of the mirror and hit the black dragon. The dragon screamed and its body began to shrink.

“Remnant of the Torch Dragon. Give it up,” Chang’e said, hard.

The black dragon turned its head and looked at her, and its eyes were all murder. “An immortal from the Immortal Realm, meddling in my business.”

“I am not going to meddle, I am going to cut you down and pay you out for the people on this coast.” Chang’e turned into a streak of white light and went at the dragon with the mirror in her hand.

The dragon threw out black poison mist, and the curse power in the mist was heavy, meaning to eat at her immortal power. Chang’e brought out the Azure Cloud Pendant and the blue-green light wrapped her body and held the mist off, and at the same time she drove the power of the Soul-Seeking Mirror into a keen blade of light and struck at the dragon’s head.

A crack of sound.

The blade came down on the dragon’s head and the head came off, and black blood came out of it and hit the sea with a hiss, and the water boiled.

The dragon’s remnant soul screamed and tried to run. Chang’e was not going to let it. She drove the mirror again and a white light came out of it and swallowed the remnant whole.

The remnant of the Torch Dragon was cut down for good.

The people on the coast saw the head come off and went down on their knees. “Thank you, immortal lady. You saved our lives.”

Chang’e raised them up. “No need for that. Sheltering the people is my charge.”

After that Chang’e went to Flowing Sands Valley in the Western Desert. This had been Mo Chen’s place. His cultivation had crashed, the grudge had got into him, and he had turned into a killer who did not blink, and in the valley he had murdered merchants and common folk without number.

When Chang’e got to the valley, Mo Chen had a pack of demon soldiers around a merchant caravan. The guards were all dead. The only ones left were unarmed people backed into a corner, shaking.

“Mo Chen. Stop,” Chang’e said, hard.

Mo Chen turned his head and looked at her, and his eyes were all murder. “An immortal from the Immortal Realm, come to meddle in my business.”

“You prey on the people and heaven and earth will not have it. Today I do heaven’s work and cut you down.” Chang’e drove her immortal power and went at him.

Mo Chen had lost most of it, and he was still a Spirit Severing stage cultivator. He brought out a black curved blade and cut at her, and the blade came with thick demonic qi and curse power on it.

Chang’e met him with the Soul-Seeking Mirror and they fought. Wind and sand filled the valley, immortal power and demonic qi came together with a noise that hurt the ears.

Mo Chen was strong, but he was full of bitterness and demonic qi, and his Dao Heart had broken long ago. Chang’e had right on her side and no doubt in her, and her Dao Heart was steady, and with the Azure Cloud Pendant and the Soul-Seeking Mirror behind her she began to get the better of him.

At the end she caught him in an opening and the mirror’s force became a blade of light and went into his dantian, and his dantian broke and his cultivation was gone and he went down and lay there barely breathing.

“I will not have it.” Mo Chen screamed it, and his face was nothing but that. “Why is Heaven unjust? Why is the immortal path cut? Why do I end like this?”

Chang’e looked down at him. “Heaven may be unjust. The immortal path may be cut. You preying on the people is your own doing. Fellow Daoist Lin Yan set that curse out of a hurt he could not swallow, and his whole life he sheltered the people and never did one thing that injured the innocent. Let the bitterness go and turn yourself around and there may still be a way for you.”

Something went out of Mo Chen’s eyes as he heard it. He looked at the people he had hurt. “I… was wrong…”

Then he let his cultivation go, and he went away into seclusion, and no one ever saw him again.

Chang’e got the caravan people out, and she set a cleansing formation over Flowing Sands Valley and took the demonic qi and the curse power out of it, and the valley went quiet again.

Over the decades that followed, Chang’e walked every corner of the Nine Provinces. Her footprints are on the coast of the Eastern Continent, in Flowing Sands Valley in the Western Desert, on Myriad Gu Ridge in the Southern Marches, at Yanmen Pass in the Northern Wastes.

She cut down demons, cleansed the evil air, pulled people out of trouble, and word of what she did went to every corner of the Nine Provinces. The people called her the Goddess of the Moon, raised living shrines to her, and prayed to her as a god.

Because of her the demons and ghosts of the Nine Provinces were cut down one after another, and most of the cultivators who had lost so much and carried the grudge let it go and went into seclusion or turned themselves around, and the people of the Nine Provinces had their peace at last and lived quiet lives.

And the black light coming off the Stele, out there on the platform in the Northern Wastes, had grown very faint. What Lin Yan held on to about guarding the people of the Nine Provinces had come apart at last.

Inside the Stele, Lin Yan’s remnant soul felt the peace of the Nine Provinces, felt what Chang’e had done, and most of the bitterness in him was gone. One thread of it was left: the hate for Heaven and the Immortal Realm, and the unwillingness at having the Dao he had held to all his life thrown out.

And the hundred years were nearly up.

Chang’e came back to the platform in the north and looked at the Stele with its faint black light, and she was full of hoping. The last step in taking Lin Yan’s bitterness apart was about to begin.

She bowed to the Stele. “Fellow Daoist Lin Yan. The hundred years are up. I have brought the Azure Cloud Sect back. I have given the people of the Nine Provinces their peace. And Su Qingyuan’s soul is at rest. One thread of bitterness is left in you: the hate for Heaven and the Immortal Realm, and the unwillingness at what was done to your Dao. I know what it takes to take that last thread apart. Heaven has to admit your Dao. The Immortal Realm has to apologize to you.”

“I have been up to the Immortal Realm. I spoke to the Jade Emperor and to the immortals. They have agreed. They will admit your Dao. They will apologize.”

The words were out and the cloud seas of the Ninth Heaven opened, and a golden glow came down out of them. In the glow the Jade Emperor led the immortals of the Immortal Realm down, slowly, and there was no pride on their faces now and no coldness, only a deep guilt and a wish to make it right.

Chapter Ten — Heaven Repents, the Immortal Realm Apologizes

The gold fell across that platform in the Northern Wastes. The Jade Emperor led the immortals of the Immortal Realm down in front of the Stele, and the immortals bowed, and guilt and apology were all that showed on them.

The Jade Emperor looked at the Heaven-Cursing Stele and spoke, slowly, and his voice carried across the whole of the Nine Provinces and across the cloud seas of the Ninth Heaven. He named Lin Yan, and on behalf of the Immortal Realm he apologized to him: “Fellow Daoist Lin Yan. On behalf of the Immortal Realm, I apologize to you.”

“All those years ago, when you faced your tribulation, the gates of immortality should have opened and received you into the Immortal Realm. But the Thunder Ministry’s Heavenly Lord, out of nothing but his own greed, altered the decree of Heaven, shut those gates, and left you to fail and be scoured out of body and soul. That was the Immortal Realm’s fault. It was my fault. I wronged you.”

“Your Way was following Heaven, and it was mercy and good. All your life you cut down demons and their kind, pulled people out of their suffering, and kept the Nine Provinces safe. That Way had long since gone past most of the immortals of the Immortal Realm. Your goodness had long since been cut into the hearts of the common people. Your holding fast had long since been remembered by Heaven and Earth. Heaven acknowledges your Way. The Immortal Realm acknowledges your Way. You never did anything wrong.”

The Jade Emperor’s voice was full of an honest guilt and an honest apology, and the immortals of the Immortal Realm spoke up one after another as well, apologizing to Lin Yan and acknowledging his Way.

The Heaven-Cursing Stele began to shake violently. A blinding white light burst out of the black stone, and then the black stone began slowly to turn transparent, and at last it became a shaft of white light and scattered away between Heaven and Earth.

Lin Yan’s remnant soul rose slowly out of the white light of the Stele. His remnant soul had become whole, and his face had gone back to the way it looked when he was young. His Daoist robe was clean and neat. There was not the least trace of resentment or hate left in his eyes, only a full and settled calm.

He looked at the Jade Emperor and the immortals of the Immortal Realm, and then he looked at Chang’e, and spoke. All his life, he said, he had held to following Heaven and to mercy and had never once regretted it. When his tribulation failed he had carried hate in his heart and set a curse, and he had brought unending suffering down on the Immortal Realm and the Nine Provinces. He had wronged them as well.

“And now Heaven acknowledges my Way and the Immortal Realm has apologized to me, and my resentment has scattered away completely. That curse of ten thousand years without an immortal should be lifted.”

The moment Lin Yan’s words ended, a roar loud enough to deafen the world went up between Heaven and Earth, and then a power beyond measuring poured out of the space between them and swept the whole of the Nine Provinces and swept the Immortal Realm of the Ninth Heaven.

The immortals who had been struck down into the mortal world and fallen into Reincarnation were loosed from it one after another and ascended to the Immortal Realm again. The cultivators who had lost every bit of their cultivation had their spiritual qi restored, and some of them rose a level higher than before. The dried-up spirit veins ran with qi again, and the immortal mountains and blessed grounds came back to the bustle they had once known.

The curse of ten thousand years without an immortal was lifted at last.

The cultivation world of the Nine Provinces came alive again. Cultivators took up their training once more and went back to chasing the immortal path, and this time Heaven was just and the Immortal Realm stood open. Anyone whose heart turned toward the light and who held to what was right could walk the immortal path and take a place among the immortals.

Lin Yan’s remnant soul looked at all of it, and there was nothing in his eyes but a quiet gladness. He turned to Chang’e, to the Jade Emperor, to the immortals of the Immortal Realm, to the common people of the Nine Provinces. His Way, he said, had never been denied. His goodness had never been forgotten. His holding fast had never been betrayed. This life was enough.

The words ended, and Lin Yan’s remnant soul became a shaft of white light, and in the sky it met the soul-shade of Su Qingyuan. The two shafts of light held each other close, and then they stepped into Reincarnation together, and this time they would keep each other for a whole life and never be parted again.

Chang’e watched the two shafts of light holding each other in the sky, and her eyes were full of tears. She knew she had finally finished what she was sent to do. She had dissolved Lin Yan’s resentment, broken the curse, and given the Immortal Realm and the Nine Provinces their peace back.

The Jade Emperor looked at all of it and his heart was full. From this day on, he said, the Immortal Realm and the Nine Provinces would live in peace. Heaven was just, the Immortal Realm stood open, and there would be no more injustice and no more resentment.

The immortals nodded one after another. They knew that this calamity Lin Yan had brought on them, which had lasted a hundred years, was over at last.

And the common people of the Nine Provinces raised a great cheer, because they knew that the Venerable Yandao in their hearts had finally let go of his resentment and been given the acknowledgment he was owed, and because the Nine Provinces had their immortal path again.

Many years later, the cultivation world of the Nine Provinces still told the tale of Lin Yan, and the deeds of Chang’e, and the Heaven-Cursing Stele standing on the Tribulation Platform in the Northern Wastes, and the curse of ten thousand years without an immortal. And they told one thing more, a thing that is not a tale. Follow Heaven, be merciful, hold to what is right, and Heaven and Earth will remember it and the world will pass it on. Whether or not the immortal path is open, whether or not Heaven is just, hold to your own heart, and that is the best Way there is.

And in Reincarnation, Lin Yan and Su Qingyuan met again. This time he was no longer the Venerable Yandao with nothing in his head but ascending to immortality, and she was no longer the woman who waited and waited. They were only an ordinary husband and an ordinary wife, living an ordinary life in the mortal world, with firewood and rice and oil and salt, keeping each other for a whole life and never once being parted.