After detouring through the mountain forest for several days, Bai Heng found a secluded, quiet creek valley and decided to rest for a while.
Although the spiritual energy here was not particularly dense, the location was well hidden.
Behind a massive boulder half-covered in vines, she cleared out a dry corner to serve as a temporary shelter.
She sat in quiet meditation until her mind had completely calmed.
Instead of continuing her journey right away, she retrieved the plain gray storage pouch Yun Qing had left behind from her consciousness aperture.
She had only given the contents a cursory glance before, focusing mainly on spirit stones, medicinal pills, jade slips, and other cultivation resources.
Now that she had set out on a long journey and had encountered Lu Liang by chance as well as the unexpected incident by the river valley, she felt it was necessary to gain a deeper understanding of this world’s layout and common knowledge.
She sank her consciousness into the pouch, ignoring the neatly stacked spirit stones, medicine bottles, and artifacts.
Instead, she went straight to the sizable pile of jade slips and booklets in the corner.
Most of them contained Yun Qing and his wife’s cultivation insights, pill-refining notes, collected technique summaries, and various travel records.
Bai Heng searched patiently.
Soon, a yellowed, slightly worn leather-bound booklet caught her attention.
The cover had no title, only a few simple strokes outlining a landscape of mountains and rivers.
She took out the booklet.
It was quite heavy, the paper tough and durable.
On the title page, a somewhat hasty yet strong and vigorous handwriting appeared before her “eyes”:
Eastward Travel Notes — Miscellaneous Records of My Journeys Through the Li, Jin, and Yan Kingdoms
The author’s signature was a name she did not recognize: Qing Song Daoist.
A small note beside it read: Golden Core loose cultivator, born in Wu Province of Li Kingdom.
Year of death unknown.
Lived to four hundred and seventy-nine years old. No hope of reaching Nascent Soul, so these notes were written merely for personal amusement.
It seemed to be the work of a Golden Core loose cultivator whose lifespan was nearing its end and whose cultivation had stalled.
In the final century or so of his life, he had recorded his travels across various lands as a form of consolation.
Bai Heng’s interest was piqued. This was exactly what she needed most right now—a relatively objective, broad-perspective “guidebook.”
She settled into a comfortable position and began reading carefully.
The booklet’s contents were wide-ranging, covering astronomy and geography, local customs, power structures, cultivation anecdotes, and even some rumors and unofficial histories.
The records spanned roughly from one hundred and fifty years ago up to a little over a century ago, right before Qing Song Daoist’s final closed-door cultivation.
She read slowly, lingering on any interesting or important sections and committing them to memory.
The country she was currently in was called Li Kingdom.
It was one of the three strongest nations formed after the splitting of the “Tianlan Kingdom” three thousand years ago.
The other two were Jin Kingdom and Yan Kingdom.
The once-mighty Tianlan Kingdom had shrunk considerably and was now only a mid-tier nation.
Li Kingdom was vast, divided into six provinces, each containing twelve commanderies.
The Lan Province where she currently resided was mountainous and hilly, with relatively simple and honest local customs.
The cultivation forces here were not particularly strong, consisting mostly of small sects and loose cultivators, and conflicts were comparatively mild.
The Ping Province, where Qingxi Village was located, was the political heart of Li Kingdom and the site of the royal capital.
Interestingly, the mortal bureaucratic system was most complete there, while cultivators were the rarest—at least openly.
According to Qing Song Daoist, this was an unspoken agreement in the cultivation world: not to interfere excessively in the natural rise and fall of secular dynasties and their governance.
The travelogue noted that Ping Province bordered Lan Province, with hilly and wooded terrain in the border region dotted with mortal villages.
Qingxi Village was likely one of them.
Besides Lan and Ping Provinces, Li Kingdom had four others:
Wu Province, which possessed the richest and most abundant spiritual energy and served as the core of Li Kingdom’s entire cultivation world.
The four major sects—Moonflower Sect, Hidden Edge Valley, Qingxu Sect, and Pill Cloud Mountain—as well as the three great immortal clans—Feng Clan, Han Clan, and Wang Clan—had their main mountains or strongholds mostly located here, or wielded enormous influence within the province.
Seeing the names “Qingxu Sect” and “Feng Clan,” Bai Heng’s gaze lingered for a moment as she recalled Yun Qing’s dying words.
Yu Province, with fertile land and abundant grain production, was an important granary for Li Kingdom.
Cultivators here seemed more pragmatic and interacted more with mortals.
Many sects protected local civilians, receiving offerings in return while providing a degree of protection.
The divide between immortals and mortals was not as stark as in other provinces.
Yue Province, a hub of commerce and trade where mortal merchants and cultivators mingled freely.
Many large trading houses were backed by cultivation forces.
It was an excellent place to obtain various cultivation resources and gather information, but it was also a chaotic mix of all kinds of people, requiring caution.
Ming Province, located in the north, was rich in mineral resources—especially spirit stones—but the climate was bitterly cold, with vast areas covered in perpetual snow.
The people were hardy, and lone loose cultivators found it difficult to survive here.
Most attached themselves to several cultivator clans that controlled the major mining operations.
Those clans, in turn, had countless ties to the great sects and families of Wu Province.
Reading this reminded Bai Heng that Yun Qing and his wife had found the secret realm in Frost Snow Valley of Ming Province.
The travelogue also touched on the wider world.
The “Sulfur Domain” mentioned by the cat demon girl three thousand years ago had become a dangerous region now dominated by a mix of demon clans and demonic path cultivators, separated from the human righteous path forces by the “Moon Sea.”
That vast “Moon Sea” was not a true ocean but a strange body of water filled with chaotic spiritual energy and spatial rifts.
Islands dotted its expanse, with forces tangled in complex alliances where good and evil were hard to distinguish.
It was a paradise of both opportunity and danger, a playground for desperados and those seeking fortune.
Other countries formed after the splitting of the ancient Tianlan Kingdom were mentioned occasionally, but not described in as much detail as Li Kingdom and its surroundings.
Beyond geography and powers, the travelogue also recorded a great deal about “demons.”
From the perspective of a human cultivator, Qing Song Daoist distinguished between “demon beasts” and “demon cultivators.”
Demon beasts referred to all creatures—beasts, birds, or even plant spirits—that had not awakened spiritual intelligence and acted on instinct, absorbing the essence of the sun and moon or spiritual energy to strengthen themselves.
They could be extremely powerful, but their intelligence was chaotic and their behavior closer to that of wild animals.
Demon cultivators, on the other hand, specifically referred to those of the demon race who had gained spiritual intelligence through fortunate opportunities and could consciously cultivate and wield power like human cultivators.
Their intelligence was equal to—or sometimes surpassed—that of humans, and they often possessed innate divine abilities, making them formidable.
The travelogue noted that attitudes toward demon cultivators varied greatly across different regions.
In prosperous cultivation centers like Wu Province of Li Kingdom, the major orthodox sects considered themselves righteous and generally viewed non-human demon cultivators—especially untamed wild ones—with rejection, wariness, or outright hostility.
When encountering demon cultivators, they would at best expel them; at worst, they would kill them and harvest their inner cores, pelts, or bones for artifact crafting or pill refining.
Only the extremely rare “spirit beasts” or “mountain-protecting spirit demons” that had been tamed by major sects or clans and bound by contracts enjoyed slightly better treatment, though they were still essentially servants.
In more remote or pragmatic regions like Lan Province and Yu Province, as long as demon cultivators did not actively cause harm and kept to themselves, most human cultivators simply ignored them. Some even cooperated occasionally.
For example, certain sects in Yu Province had tacit agreements with local awakened mountain spirits or water essences, neither side interfering with the other and occasionally offering mutual convenience.
The Sulfur Domain, meanwhile, was a paradise for the demon race.
Human cultivators—especially those of the righteous path—had to tread with extreme caution if they entered.
On the islands of the Moon Sea, anything was possible.
Humans and demons lived together, traded, or fought; all were commonplace.
The travelogue also recorded scattered specific incidents of conflict or cooperation between human cultivators and demon cultivators—some heart-pounding, others heartbreaking.
Bai Heng closed the booklet and pondered quietly.
Although this travelogue from over a century ago might contain somewhat outdated information, the overall framework and layout of the world should not have changed drastically.
It gave her a preliminary yet much clearer understanding of her environment.
Li Kingdom, Qingxu Sect, Feng Clan, Wu Province… these names were no longer abstract concepts.
She was currently a second-tier white fox demon cultivator living in the wilds of Lan Province.
According to the travelogue, as long as she did not stir up trouble in Lan Province, the area was relatively safe.
But her destination was Qingxi Village in the border region between Ping Province and Lan Province.
And after that?
If she wanted to deliver the ring safely to Yun Zhuo and ensure his safety, she might inevitably become indirectly entangled with Qingxu Sect—and possibly even the Feng Clan.
Both Qingxu Sect and the Feng Clan were based in Wu Province, the heart of Li Kingdom’s cultivation world and one of the regions least friendly toward demon cultivators.
The road ahead did not look smooth.
Bai Heng let out a soft breath and carefully returned Eastward Travel Notes to the storage pouch.
Knowing more was always better than remaining ignorant.
At the very least, she could plan her route more carefully, avoid unnecessary trouble zones, and better understand the risks her identity as a “demon cultivator” might bring.
Moonlight quietly filled the creek valley.
Bai Heng left her temporary shelter, leaped onto the half-covered boulder, and raised her head toward the silver disk in the night sky.
She began circulating the Heavenly Fox Moon-Drawing Art, drawing the cool moonlight power into her qi sea thread by thread.
It refined her demon power and gently smoothed the faint ripples that had stirred in her heart.
No matter what lay ahead, increasing her own strength was always the most fundamental guarantee.
The night deepened.
Creek water gurgled.
The white fox’s figure, bathed in moonlight, seemed to be coated in a hazy, clear glow, merging seamlessly with the tranquil mountain valley.
Thanks for the chapter