Chapter 1116: Wandering the Jianghu

Blue sand dunes flickered radiantly, almost as if each individual grain of sand was a gemstone. The dunes stretched endlessly, like massive, solid, and silent waves.

Within the silence, the intense heat caused everything to blur. The sand glittered like starlight, like countless timelines, converging into a dream. A dream like an illusion. As one gazed at it, it was a beautiful illusion.

The boat was currently gliding toward the edge of the Desert of Time.

Yunmen Qianfan sat next to Xu Qing peeling fruit for him as he read a book. Looking over at him, she said, “Senior, this is the Desert of Time. After we cross it, we’ll be at that ancient teleportation portal. And we can use that portal to get very close to Darkcloud City.”

To her, this journey had been like the constantly fluctuating heat waves out on the desert. Her heart had trembled, and her mind felt like it was in a dream. Thinking back to what happened left her with an incomparably marvelous sensation. Sir Firedark had killed a seven-world Smoldering God by making him cry to death. He had slaughtered four elders in a few breaths of time. He had crushed a god with the wave of his hand.

Because of all of that, she was now convinced that Sir Firedark was actually an Imperial Sovereign! She had dealt with Imperial Sovereign cultivators before, be they the patriarch of her clan, or clan chosen. She had also seen quite a few foreign Imperial Sovereigns from a distance. All of them were profoundly above her station.

But never had she been so close to one, let alone gone on a journey with them. She had never in her life experienced the sensation of being completely protected from all danger. It moved her down to her soul.

Over the past few days, she had occasionally taken advantage of moments in which she served him alcohol to ask some questions about cultivation. He had never been stingy, and had always taken time to give her pointers.

All of the pointers had been beneficial, and had helped her resolve confusing aspects of cultivation that had been blocking her progress. In fact, from what she could tell, Sir Firedark seemed more knowledgeable than her own clan’s patriarch.

As for why an Imperial Sovereign would choose to serve as a vassal in her clan, and hide his cultivation base in the process, was something she didn’t bother thinking about. Nor did she care. Clan matters like that didn’t have anything to do with her personally.

Sir Firedark has his own difficulties to deal with. I doubt he wants his secrets made public.

Yunmen Qianfan carefully peeled another immortal fruit. At the same time, she noticed that Xu Qing’s flagon was empty, and she deftly replaced it. She had packed her bag of holding full of many things, and though only a portion was filled with food and drink, even that bit was more than enough.

It was not the result of her divinations. Rather, after she settled on picking him as her escort, she decided that she would commit fully to playing the part of a handmaiden. She would do everything possible to make Sir Firedark’s journey comfortable. After all, that would make her own survival much more likely.

Xu Qing didn’t care either way. However, he had to admit that Yunmen Qianfan was doing a remarkable job as a handmaiden. She was smart and decisive, especially in the way she explained the situation upfront and gave him the spatial clay. Because of that, Xu Qing intended to live up to his promise.

Taking a sip of alcohol, he looked at the desert stretched out in front of them. It was scintillating and hazy, and he could see time itself within the desert.

As they neared, the desert became like a painting that heaven itself had inscribed with magical laws. Off in the distance, the rolling dunes seemed to hide ancient secrets.

There were a few plants here and there. All had needle-like leaves, which was how such plants adapted to the heat and lack of water. Life was hard here. But that was just life. And all living beings had to deal with similar things.

A few fierce eagles soared above, silhouetted by the light of the aurora. The desert was silent except for their piercing cries, which just added to the mysterious and desolate air of the place.

“Why is it called the Desert of Time?” Xu Qing asked as the boat flew into the desert.

Up to this point in the journey, Yunmen Qianfan had seemed like she knew everything. But now she hesitated. A moment passed.

“Senior,” she said in an uneasy voice, “none of the ancient records explain how the desert got that name. It’s just what the desert dwellers call the place. In other words, I don’t really know how it got the name....”

Xu Qing nodded and looked over at her. “You picked some interesting places to pass through. Skywater Lake. The Desert of Time. It seems all of them have names with special meanings, or at the very least, ancient legends associated with them. You must know about other interesting places, right?”

Yunmen Qianfan took a bamboo scroll out of her bag of holding and respectfully offered it to Xu Qing.

“Senior, the truth is that I like reading about different places and their stories. And I collect what I learn in this scroll. Some of the places are locations I’ve personally been to in my clan’s territory. But some are places I’ve only heard about from others. I can’t really guarantee what information is true and what isn’t.”

Xu Qing picked up the bamboo scroll and scanned it with divine will. His eyes glittered. The scroll was full of written information about all sorts of geographic locations, from mountains, to rivers, to valleys. All of them had names and stories attached to them.

“The Pond of Fallen Evil. Heavenwind Cave. The Firevoid Mountains. The Fallen Immortal Moors. Primary Dao Precipice. The Geotale Cisterns. Cloudmire Basin.”[1]

The names were very intriguing to Xu Qing.

It seems that more than half of these places are as unique as Skywater Lake or the Desert of Time. This information is going to be very helpful.

Xu Qing rolled up the scroll. As far as he was concerned, it was probably just as valuable as the spatial clay.

He looked at Yunmen Qianfan again. “Are you in a rush to get to Darkcloud City?”

“No,” she replied. “No rush at all.”

She was very excited to see how pleased he was with her bamboo scroll. Based on the cultivation tips Xu Qing had been giving her, she got the feeling that extending the journey would be a good thing.

Xu Qing nodded, then took a step forward and disappeared from the boat. When he reappeared he was in the desert. He sat down cross-legged, his eyes gleaming.

Time is in chaos here. Or you could say that different timelines are flowing at different rates. But because of how they all mix together, the result is that everything seems normal.

He sent his divine will spreading out in all directions.

Yunmen Qianfan was already used to how Xu Qing would occasionally seek enlightenment. When he sat down, she put away the boat and then landed next to him. She immediately got busy. She started by setting up a canopy of woven spirit plants, along with a matching floor mat. There, she sat down with her chin resting on her hand as she gazed at Xu Qing. Although Xu Qing was still disguised as a middle-aged man, he still seemed unusually dashing to her.

I bet that when he was younger, he was really gallant and dashing. He probably has so many stories to tell.... I wonder what he’s thinking about when he’s looking off into the distance. Maybe he’s thinking about his family or some old friends.

And then there’s that song about wandering the jianghu. It sounds so heroic, but also sad. Whenever I play it, I find myself thinking about a woman. Could she be... Senior Firedark’s daoist partner?

[2]

As her thoughts wandered, the warm wind blew, stirring Xu Qing’s hair and robe.

When the wind touched Yunmen Qianfan, it pressed her garments down, causing her elegant curves to become even more prominent. She was very beautiful.

At that moment, it was as if heaven itself had taken notice, and began to turn that desert scene into a beautiful painting.

In that manner, time passed. Five days.

Xu Qing’s divine will covered a massive area within the desert. At the same time, it penetrated every individual particle of sand. During the five days that passed, Xu Qing’s study of the desert helped him to gain a deep sense of the chaos within time. He wasn’t sure exactly why it was happening. But he could sense his sundials inside of him, and could feel the gnomons speeding up and slowing down, starting and stopping.

His dao of extreme time was very active. As a result of his observations, he was gradually coming to understand time better, and had even come up with some new speculations.

There’s so much sand here that it seems as uncountable as the drops of water in a sea. But the reality is... that to me, it seems like a cohesive body. That doesn’t mean that the desert itself has a body. Rather... it’s completely unified!

Xu Qing’s mind was racing.

Put more precisely, every grain of sand has different patterns of wear, and is a different size. They’re all unique. But the truth is that when they started out, they were all exactly the same. Whether it was their size or the state of their surfaces, they were all completely identical. Given how many of them there are, it seems almost like they’re all copies.

After his observation and reflection, he was reaching new enlightenment. Reaching out, he scooped up some sand and looked at it.

It seems like... there only used to be one grain of sand here. Because of the wind, or maybe some other external factors, the grain of sand moved. And every time it moved, it used its inherent time to effect transformations.

Each transformation caused a new timeline to appear. That’s how there came to be many grains of sand. Because of the flow of time, or perhaps because of some other mysterious force, more and more timelines appeared. More and more grains of sand appeared.

Each grain started out the same. But as the individual timelines formed, they interacted, resulting in different friction and paths of motion. Ultimately, they turned into the desert we see now. That’s why this place has so many different timelines, all interacting with each other.

Xu Qing looked off into the depths of the desert.

This is a really miraculous place. Or maybe it’s better to say... that this place is a precious treasure related to time itself. Not very many people exist who could take the sand away. The only way to do so would be to correctly adjust the time in each grain of sand, and cause the desert to revert from chaos back, and take all of the multitude of sand grains and convert them back into a single grain.

Not even I could do that right now. But... at least this place has given me a glimpse into what can be done with the true power of time.

Xu Qing’s eyes glittered.

“Splitting time!”

1. Most of the translations of these names are fairly straightforward. One exception is my use of the word ‘moors.’ In Chinese, its actually described as ‘plains’ in the name. However, later physical descriptions are a bit different, so I’m deviating slightly from the direct translation to match how it’s described later. ☜

2. The last time ‘wandering the jianghu’ was mentioned was in

chapter 298

. Just to reiterate, this kind of talk of the jianghu carries a very wuxia vibe. No,

Beyond the Timescape

is NOT wuxia. It’s xianxia. And though I love xianxia, I have an even more complex and sentimental connection to wuxia. The idea of heroes wandering the jianghu is super entrancing to me. In fact, the concept of a vibrant and exciting jianghu is the very foundation of the ttrpg I co-authored,

Righteous Blood Ruthless Blades

. ☜