Pure Jade Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Crumbling and Hardening

  Chapter 2: Resistance

  Chapter 3: Momentum

  Chapter 4: Cash Cow

  Chapter 5: Departure

  Chapter 6: Eyes of Pure Jade

  Interlude—Buddhas and Evil Spirits

  Chapter 7: Quicksilver City

  Chapter 8: Status

  Chapter 9: Catching Up

  Chapter 10: Adventure

  Chapter 11: Brush Maker

  Chapter 12: Colleague

  Chapter 13: State of Mind

  Chapter 14: Examination

  Chapter 15: The Final Hurdle

  Interlude—A Meeting on the Mountain

  Chapter 16: Competition

  Chapter 17: Obstruction

  Chapter 18: A Familiar Face

  Chapter 19: Blowing off Steam

  Chapter 20: A Devil’s Alignment

  Interlude: Filial Piety

  Chapter 21: Invitation

  Chapter 22: Interview

  Chapter 23: Formations

  Chapter 24: Mo Tianshen

  Chapter 25: Sigilcraft

  Chapter 26: Stormchaser

  Chapter 27: Hidden Agenda

  Chapter 28: Formation Battles

  Chapter 29: Hunting

  Chapter 30: Parallel Arts

  Chapter 31: Tooth and Nail

  Interlude—Fanning the Flames

  Chapter 32: Beast Tamer

  Chapter 33: Fusion

  Chapter 34: Friendship

  Chapter 35: Alabaster Corps

  Chapter 36: Monarch

  Chapter 37: Between Light and Darkness

  Chapter 38: Gambit

  Epilogue

  The Cultivation Systems

  A Note to Readers

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Pure Jade

  Painting the Mists, Book 4

  By Patrick G. Laplante

  © Patrick Georges Laplante, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Patrick Georges Laplante and www.paintingthemists.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

  Website: www.paintingthemists.com

  ISBN: 978-1-9994447-3-0

  To those who feel guilty: Trust in your conscience; the rest will solve itself.

  Author’s Note

  Wow. Time flies.

  It’s been eleven months since I started writing casually, and Book 4 is undergoing final touches before being published as an eBook. At the time of writing this note, I’ve already written the outline for Book 5. Further, I wrote four chapters of Book 5, scrapped the outline, and started over again.

  For the first time since writing Book 1, I’ve finally taken the opportunity to slow down and write at a comfortable pace and with a comfortable process. It has made a world of difference, and I hope it comes across to you as you read this book.

  Those of you who read the eBooks might not have noticed, but I paused online releases for over a month to make this happen. I expected loads of backlash—after all, web serial readers are notorious for their impatience. Yet to my surprise, not a single follower on Royal Road has complained this entire time. For that I thank you.

  Before we head into Book 4, entitled Pure Jade, I would like to direct your attention to two things: confidence and conscience. In life, people have many possible choices that they can make. Therefore, it is natural to doubt and to regret. Sometimes people instinctively know they have made the wrong decisions. They know this because of their conscience, and their guilt helps determine their choices later in life.

  Values take a lifetime to figure out. No one is perfect, and each bad decision adds guilt to a person’s heart. Each misstep adds a layer of polish to the rough stone that is a person’s soul. Given enough time, it isn’t long before the soul becomes resplendent.

  Like pure jade.

  Prologue

  It was a cold autumn day in the Silverwing Mountain Range. The fresh breeze caused Xi Ling to shiver as she ran through the wilderness. She was careful to avoid poisonous plants, disgruntled beasts, and annoying insects. Her cultivation robe stubbornly clung to her body as she weaved through the cluttered trees. She didn’t have the luxury of caring.

  Out of five companions, only three remained. A chance encounter with an early-purification demon beast had devastated their small group. Frightened and bleeding, the human cultivators had been a very attractive target.

  A piercing shriek caused Xi Ling to look back reflexively. She saw Meng Huan, her Dao companion1, collapse to the ground after being struck down by a demon bear’s mighty claws. Her heart clenched when she saw the last of his life drain away. She bit back her tears and forced herself to remember Meng Huan’s last words: If I die, live on.

  Yet the love of her life had just died, and she longed to join him.

  She and Meng Ruxing, her last remaining companion, quickly retreated to a small abandoned cave. The younger man dutifully started a hidden fire, bringing much-needed warmth to their shivering bodies. He said nothing. She knew he liked her, but he had reined himself in once her relationship with Meng Huan had solidified. He was Meng Huan’s elder brother, and she trusted him with her life.

  Her fingers soon thawed. As did her bottled-up feelings. She cried like she’d never cried before, so Meng Ruxing erected a qi barrier to prevent the nearby demon beasts from hearing. She soon fell asleep.

  The next day, they found themselves wandering through a cold, dark tunnel. Neither of them bothered to use a light source, as their incandescent force provided them with basic visibility. Besides, using light in dark places could attract ground-dwelling demons. Their last encounter had crushed any hopes they had in escaping a second time.

  “Why are we wandering down here again?” Xi Ling asked, her voice hoarse from all the crying the previous night.

  “To find a safe place to heal our wounds,” Meng Ruxing replied softly. “It’s hardly safe to stay near the entrance of the cave, and it’s equally unsafe to stay in a cave without knowing what’s in it. We need to scout this place out to make sure it’s suitable for us to rest and recover. We’ll make a break for it when we’re ready.”

  What he said made sense. It was just that Xi Ling didn’t want to do anything. She just wanted to lie down and die and join Meng Huan in the afterlife.

  Unfortunately, she had no choice but to go along with the young man. Whenever she felt like stopping, she heard that delicate voice telling her to live on.

  Meng Huan, my love, she thought. She fingered the jade ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. Meng Huan had a matching one. He had said it bound them by karma, so that they would be together in this life and the next.

  An hour later, the tunnel widened, and the darkness lifted. It opened into a glowing room filled with various crystals. Purple, clear, and green. And blue. Blue had been Meng Huan’s favorite color. She sobbed softly as she walked but was soon silenced by Meng Ruxing’s outstretched hand tapping her with alarm.

  We’re not alone, he said to her mentally. They both pulled their weapons. His was a dagger, an unusual weapon for a man. It suited his rare wind attribute. She had lost track of the amount of times he had stealthily stabbed stronger opponents in the back. At least thirty.

  Xi Ling used a pair of elegant swords. One was green while the other was blue. She was a healer, dually proficient in wood and water. Wood and water cultivators were known for their superior defense, one of t
he reasons she’d managed to survive their deadly encounter.

  Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

  Xi Ling paused. It was the terrible sound of claw on stone. She steeled herself and struck out first, her twin swords aiming to restrain the fierce beast and buy enough time for Meng Ruxing to land a killing blow. The beast roared and lashed out with claws the size of her face and teeth the size of her forearms. She prepared herself for the inevitable backlash of crashing against the powerful demon beast.

  To her surprise, her swords slashed through the teeth and claws with ease, instantly slaying the beast. It was just a low-level badger, working diligently to expand its cave dwelling. Meng Ruxing hadn’t even rushed forward.

  What’s wrong with you? he sent mentally. For some reason, she felt sick to her stomach. Killing demon beasts would have never caused such a reaction in the past, but her emotions were unstable due to the death of her lover. She started dry heaving, and Meng Ruxing ignored her as he gutted its corpse.

  He still wasn’t done by the time she recovered, so she took the chance to explore the room where the badger had been digging. She focused her incandescent force but noticed that it stopped suddenly near where the badger was digging. The dark space that was only dimly illuminated by the crystals in the other room. She frowned and took out an illumination stone to better observe. The walls were covered in gray, brown, and green stone. The bulk of the brown and gray stone had been scratched off by the innocent badger, leaving the hard green stone untouched.

  She couldn’t help but reach out and touch it. A warm feeling shot through her arm when she did. Is it something valuable? she wondered.

  Her instincts as a cultivator kicked in. She scratched away the remainder of the brown and gray rock. Afterward, she used her sword and began cutting out large chunks of the green stone. It seemed like some sort of jade, a worthless material used for mortal jewelry. The same material her ring was made of.

  Meng Ruxing approached her as she continued to cut out chunks, some measuring a cubic foot. She ignored him as she worked, cutting block after block. And then her blade stopped. She frowned. Magic weapons could cut through ordinary stones like butter. Therefore, she had widened the excavation and began removing larger and larger segments to reach the impenetrable obstacle. Meng Ruxing soon began to help her. He stabbed away quickly and efficiently, storing brick after brick of pure jade.

  He’s always been miserly, even with family, she thought.

  It wasn’t long before the jade was completely removed. What they discovered shocked them. The wall, which had previously been solid green, now glowed with resplendent green, white, and yellow colors. There was even a spot of purple and a spot of blue. The color was creamy and opaque, much like the stone before it. However, it seemed purer. More substantial.

  “What do you think it is?” Xi Ling whispered.

  “I think…” Meng Ruxing said hesitantly. “I think it’s immortal jade.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Why have I never heard of such a thing? Is it a treasure?”

  “More than that,” Meng Ruxing replied. “It’s a treasure so valuable it could cause a civil war.”

  She gasped. “What is it used for?”

  “It’s used for advancing past core formation,” he explained while walking up beside her. “It’s also used to make top-grade core-formation equipment and alchemical products. It’s not something we can dig out and sell ourselves. We must find someone with sufficient political clout and negotiate a payout.”

  She nodded and touched the stone wall, admiring its multicolored surface. “It’s too bad the others aren’t here. We came here to find our fortune, and now they are gone forever. With this, we wouldn’t have had to worry about riches for a lifetime. Meng Huan and I could have moved to the south, where it’s always summer and never winter. We could have lived the rest of our lives in peace.”

  Meng Ruxing paused. “Do you miss him?”

  “More than anything,” she whispered, still staring at the wall. “I wish I could join him in the otherworld. We could reincarnate together and find each other again in the next life.”

  There was naught but silence. Silence followed by a sharp pain between her shoulder blades. She sank down to her knees, unable to move any of her limbs.

  “Why?” she asked as her vision blurred.

  “I think you know why,” he said. “It’s nothing personal. I wouldn’t even trust my own brother with this secret, much less his Dao companion. Besides, didn’t you say you wanted to join him?”

  Xi Ling was angry and shocked, but as her lifeblood left her, she took solace in the fact that she would soon be reunited with her lover. She had tried to fulfill her promise to live on but had failed.

  Knowing that his brother did this to me would devastate him, she thought. I shall not tell him. What use is there in telling him if we’ll forget everything when we drink Aunty Meng’s tea?

  Her life faded as her soul was pulled toward the unknown. She didn’t resist, and when she opened her eyes once more, she saw a desolate shore near a small yellow creek. There stood the soul of her lover Meng Huan. He was handsome and well kept, his eyes bright and full of intelligence.

  “See? I told you she’d be here soon,” a cloaked figure said. He smiled as the two lovers reunited.

  They hugged each other tightly before looking at the cloaked man, who hadn’t moved since she had arrived. “Must we step into the Yellow River?” Xi Ling asked.

  “Alas, this is the law of the universe. Your souls must be cleansed before being sent into the cycle of reincarnation. You will forget everything after you drink Aunty Meng’s tea.”

  Tears flowed down Xi Ling’s translucent face. “Do you mean we won’t find each other in the next life?”

  “There are no absolutes,” the cloaked figure said. “Luckily, you purchased these jade wedding bands. Wonderful things. I have a friend who makes a killing selling them.”

  Xi Ling glanced at her finger where she saw a faint jade glow where the ring had been. She also felt a soft line connecting her to Meng Huan. “The rings have bound you by karma. You will meet in your next life, for better or for worse. The rest is up to you.”

  The couple’s worries evaporated. They nodded to each other before stepping into the yellow stream, hand in hand. Their souls transformed into white balls slightly tinged with yellow. They were connected by a jade tether, entangled and inseparable.

  “Mortals lead such beautiful lives,” Yama said, sighing. “It’s a pity they are so short, like flowers that bloom only to wilt the next day.”

  Unlike those two youngsters, he was aeons old. He was destined to be forever alone as he watched the streams of reincarnation. No one would ever want to share his immense burden.

  Besides, the Underworld was filled with a bunch of gold diggers. Sifting through the crowds of women that fawned over him every single day was a near-impossible task. Even the most sophisticated dating apps in the universe hadn’t yielded him any convincing results, causing him to completely give up on finding a Dao companion.

  Yama teleported back to his office after finishing the round of inspections. His assistant appeared shortly after. As the ruler of the Underworld, he had a special exemption to the strict no-teleportation law that applied to the entire city. However, he could only teleport to his office from outside the city and vice-versa. Failure to adhere to this rule would result in fines. Fines that would impact his operating budget.

  It is as I feared, he thought. A new universe war is coming, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

  The Underworld had always been neutral. They treated souls of mortals, angels, devils, and demons. Only buddhas and evil spirits were outside his control. They were a bunch of cheaters that didn’t play fair.

  “Have you booked today’s appointment?” Yama asked his secretary. She wore a designer suit-top with a tight skirt that rested just above her knees, her blonde hair kept in a tight bun.

  She wore red glasses today, he though
t. She must be in a good mood. No way she’ll ask for a raise again.

  “Of course, Your Excellency,” the secretary replied dutifully. “I’ve taken the trouble to compile an update to his file since his latest promotion.”

  Subtle hint drop, Yama thought. Very subtle. “We’re old friends. Why would I need an update?” Yama said while batting away the file.

  “But you know that he is rather pedantic,” she said. “This promotion is quite substantial.”

  “Nonsense,” Yama said with an air of finality. “I’ll have none of it.”

  He ran down the stairs in a fashionable jogging suit. The elevator was the fastest way down the 666 flights of stairs, but he was in dire need of exercise. His aging limbs were stiffening. He panted as he ran toward his dear friend’s residence, which was fortunately quite close. The tall tower, his destination, was made of pure obsidian. The eye-shaped fire atop it was wedged between four angled stones for dramatic effect.

  Large guardians appeared as he approached the massive black gates. They recognized his aged figure and began pushing large steel wheels. The doors opened at a slow, calculated pace. His friend had always loved drama, which was why his recent foray into show business was quite successful.

  All to stoke his gigantic ego, Yama thought.

  He arrived in the courtyard a short while later, and seeing that his friend had not yet arrived, he dematerialized his sweaty jogging suit and resummoned his traditional black robe and cloak.

  An Underworld hour of jogging is surely sufficient for the remainder of the week, he thought.

  “My friend, you made it!” a joyful voice called out. A tall figure wearing an imposing-looking black helmet was walking toward him. The impressive piece of headgear incorporated many spiky bits and deep eye sockets for extra effect.

  “Cut with the theatricals, my dear lord—” Yama started.

  “It’s marquis now,” the tall figure cloaked in black interjected.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Marquis of the Rings,” Yama said in an annoyed voice. “Does this mean that your father—”