Volume 5, Chapter 59 – Taboo

The night wind blew on, and her face had already gone numb from it.

Tao Sicheng could not remember how long she had been carried through the air. A strip of cloth had been tied over her eyes, and the gale blasting into her head-on the whole way had smothered her like a bag. She had to struggle with everything she had just to draw in the tiniest bit of air and keep herself from blacking out.

This woman called Rongyin… is she trying to kill me?

Just as she was about to reach her limit, Tao Sicheng felt their speed finally slow. They seemed to be descending, and then, after what felt like an age, her feet finally touched the ground.

After flying for so long, she had lost all sense of balance and gravity. On top of that, her limbs had gone stiff from the wind. Tao Sicheng could not hold herself up at all. The moment her feet touched down, the world spun around her. She dropped to her knees with a thud, then simply collapsed facedown.

“Urgh…” Tao Kangyuan’s dry retching came from beside her, along with Rongyin’s mocking laugh.

“You can’t even handle a little wind…”

“Forget it. Since neither of you has truly awakened yet, I won’t hold this showing against you.”

“Senior.” Tao Sicheng forced herself upright through the nausea and looked at Rongyin. “Could Senior tell us where we are now? And why you saved us? Aren’t you afraid of Bai Zhi… mmph?”

“Shhh.”

Everything blurred before her eyes. Rongyin was suddenly right in front of Tao Sicheng. One cool hand gently pinched her lips shut, while the other raised an index finger to Rongyin’s own lips, signaling her to be silent.

“To dare speak a Saint’s name outright beneath this canopy of heaven… truly a newborn calf that does not fear the tiger!”

Only after a long while did Rongyin let go of Tao Sicheng. Then, without delay, she looked up at the night sky overhead and whispered in a tone filled with awe and reverence.

“Can you see it? That purple qi canopy above the darkness.” She turned back to Tao Sicheng, then lifted her gaze to the night sky again. “Such flourishing dynastic fortune, and it is still growing stronger because of her return.”

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Tao Sicheng shook her head. She had looked too, but the sky was nothing more than ordinary black night. She could not see any “purple qi” or any “purple” at all.

“Remember this from now on. Do not speak her name outright anywhere within this country’s borders.”

Rongyin’s expression returned to normal, and she turned to the two of them in a warning tone.

“A Saint, especially one who was famous for mastery over sound and resonance even before attaining sainthood… you need to understand what may happen if you do that without any kind of concealment.”

This… could the Xia Emperor actually hear it?

Tao Kangyuan was plainly full of disbelief, but even Tao Sicheng found it hard to imagine.

She still did not know exactly where they were, but judging by the sky, they could not have flown for an entire night. That meant they could not have come too far. At absolute most, they had only just left Eastern Province.

This woman feared the Xia Emperor so much that she could not possibly have flown northwest. Flying back the way they came was even more impossible. That left only two directions… either they had flown toward Pingzhou in the central region, or toward Yuzhou a bit farther south.

Both of those places were still a whole province away from the Xia Capital. How could it be possible? Could there really be some method in this world that let someone know, from that far away and out of thin air, that another person was saying their name?

“Just listen.”

Rongyin sounded impatient. “Do not speak without my permission, and do not test my patience either… now come with me.”

She walked off. Tao Kangyuan remained standing there in a daze.

Tao Sicheng shoved her brother hard, then hurried after Rongyin with him while observing the surroundings as she walked.

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This seemed to be the estate of some great household.

The place where they had just landed was a lawn. Following the pebble path lined up beside it, one could see rockeries and pools of water… it was a thoroughly classical garden, the sort ordinary people would never be qualified to enjoy.

Liren-shi…

Tao Sicheng silently repeated the term in her heart. It sounded very much like the name of some ancient human tribe.

Could it be that, as the progress of “Primordial Return” kept advancing, certain beings that had been swept away from the main world thousands, or even tens of thousands, of years ago, had begun coming back?

Then this “Liren-shi” definitely had not just returned!

They had already sent people to look in on me when I was little. They must have been developing secretly within Eastern Xia for years by then.

And coupled with what they said back then about me being a good seedling… could it be that the Tao family is actually descended by blood from the Liren-shi line left behind in the main world?

The garden was enormous. Rongyin led the siblings for more than ten minutes before they finally found the residence. Once inside, Tao Sicheng realized there were no servants at all, which made her suspect Rongyin herself was the owner here.

Rongyin did not bother to hide anything. She gripped the brass incense burner set by the entrance and turned it half a circle. By that mechanism, the door opened. She led them deeper inside, where they found a tunnel that was clearly sloping downward.

Rumble…

The heavy door sealed shut behind them.

From the sound of it, it seemed to be made of some kind of stone.

“A secret corridor built from sound-devouring stone. Now we can finally relax halfway.”

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With a snap of her fingers, flame lit in Rongyin’s hand. She flicked the sparks deep into the passage, and with a rapid hiss-hiss-hiss, as though she were performing magic, an entire row of more than a dozen candle stands lit up one after another.

The layout here resembled the burial chambers of some ancient ruin. Tao Sicheng, with Tao Kangyuan beside her, followed Rongyin into the main hall and watched as she lit the torches on both sides. Then Rongyin sat down on the raised platform ahead in a broad, commanding posture.

“Can I say her name now?” Tao Kangyuan asked cautiously.

“No,” Rongyin replied without even looking up.

“Why?” Tao Kangyuan did not understand. “Where does this taboo even come from?”

“Saints can move through the void and carve open the void itself. Compared to ordinary mortals, they wield limitless power.”

Rongyin kept her head lowered as she spoke, brushing away the dust that had built up on the floor.

Beneath that dust seemed to be some engraved design, which was slowly being revealed under her hand.

“So crossing the void and traveling ten thousand miles is no difficult thing for them. What decides whether they bother to do it is whether they sense something ‘interesting’ in a certain direction.”

So that is why this taboo exists?

Tao Sicheng frowned.

Back then, the Xia Emperor had entered the Dao through “sound and resonance.” She had even used the Taishang Edict to consecrate the world before it was fully re-formed. On top of that, the qi-path divine pool had merged into the dynastic fortune hanging above Eastern Xia… so as long as one stood beneath this canopy of heaven, speaking her name aloud might let her notice?

And then she could tear open the void in an instant, ignore all limits of distance, and appear right in front of you? Come personally to seize you on the spot?

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That was far too terrifying!

A chill ran down Tao Sicheng’s spine.

Even the true immortals and buddhas of myth were probably no more than this. To command the void like this, to be all-knowing and all-powerful…

So this is what a Saint is?

She felt fear and dread, because when it came to saying names aloud, she had already done it many times while discussing matters with Tao Xianghao.

“The good news is that she should only have been back for a short while and still hasn’t fully mastered this power.”

Rongyin looked up. “The purple qi canopy hasn’t stirred, which means the range of her perception still doesn’t cover the entire realm.”

That’s good.

Tao Sicheng let out a breath.

“But no one knows when she’ll fully master it.” Rongyin continued brushing at the carving. “If you wait until then to change your habits, it will already be too late. So from now on, you need to get used to communicating by ‘silent speech.’”

Silent speech?

What was silent speech?

“This.” Rongyin took something out of her pocket. The brother and sister stared, eyes wide. It was, unmistakably, a smartphone.