"The Great Emperor," Xin Yi'an said.

"That's a person's name?" Wei Zhao blinked.

"Yes. Legend has it that the name was a joke at first, but once he burst onto the scene, it became the name of a true Great Emperor." Xin Yi'an's face was full of reverent longing.

"Then what does this One Step to Heaven Formation have to do with him?" Wei Zhao asked, curious.

"They say the One Step to Heaven Formation was laid down by the Great Emperor himself. Of course, that claim is hardly reliable—the sect left no accurate written record of it, so it can only count as a rumor of the jianghu," Xin Yi'an said.

"And the other version?" Qiu Lingshan and the others could not help asking. This jianghu rumor was new to their ears, and they were rather taken with it.

"The other version concerns the formation itself. They say that apart from one's identity token, anyone trapped inside can never escape the formation unless they possess the same power to ascend to heaven in a single step as the Great Emperor—and so it is called the One Step to Heaven Formation," Xin Yi'an said.

"Is that all?" Wei Zhao frowned. The rumor about the Great Emperor was somewhat interesting, but it had no direct bearing on the formation itself and was utterly useless. The second version, by contrast, sounded like it might actually be of some use—and that was all there was to it?

"That's all..." Xin Yi'an looked sheepish. He would have liked to say more; in truth there were plenty of other versions floating about, picked up from hearsay here and there, and if he really got going he could talk for three days and three nights without finishing. The trouble was that those versions could not withstand the slightest scrutiny. He was, after all, a sect elder; even if he had no way of learning the core mysteries of the One Step to Heaven Formation, he at least had a discerning eye, and was not so lacking in judgment as that.

Wei Zhao was speechless. All that talk, and there was not a scrap of substance in it—it was as good as saying nothing at all.

Still, he had not held out much hope to begin with; he had only asked in passing. He waved a hand at Xin Yi'an and said, "Never mind. You can't be of much help with this—I'll feel my own way through. As you said before, there are two things you must do next."

"Please instruct me, Martial Granduncle," Xin Yi'an said with the utmost respect.

"First. Do everything you can to confirm Sect Master Hong's whereabouts. If he lives, I want to see the man; if he is dead, I want to see the body. This is crucial. Whatever the outside world may be saying, we ourselves must know where we stand," Wei Zhao said gravely. This matter bore directly on their entire strategy going forward: Hong Zijun alive was one thing, Hong Zijun dead was another. Otherwise, if even they had no ground beneath their feet, whatever they did would yield half the result for twice the effort—and might even backfire.

"Yes. I will spare no effort," Xin Yi'an said with a heavy nod. Even if Wei Zhao had not told him, he would have seen to this himself.

"Second, by your account the native faction's disciples are now without a leader—a heap of loose sand. But I doubt every last one of them has simply accepted his fate and will henceforth take orders from Chen Dongcheng?" Wei Zhao speculated.

"Hardly," Xin Yi'an said with a decisive shake of his head. "Loose sand they may be, but there are plenty among them who reject the Chen faction. Otherwise they would never have fought the Chen faction openly and covertly under Sect Master Hong's leadership in the past. It is simply that no one has stepped forward to lead them now—after all, doing so means facing not only Chen Dongcheng and his Chen faction, but, more importantly, the pressure of the Grand Elder. An ordinary man could not withstand it at all."

"Good. Then your second task is to secretly make contact with these people. Win over as many as you can—every extra man is an extra measure of confidence," Wei Zhao instructed, then added a warning: "But you must find reliable people, and on no account let word leak out. If Chen Dongcheng and the rest learn that you are quietly forging connections in secret, you will become the bird that sticks its head out—and I trust I need not spell out the consequences."

"Uh... I know, I know. I will be careful, most careful!" Xin Yi'an broke out in a cold sweat on the spot. Once he became that bird sticking its head out, he would be a thorn in Chen Dongcheng's eye and a splinter in his flesh. The Grand Elder Chen Jiu himself might even take note of him—and with his meager strength, ten lives would not be enough to die.

"All right, that will do for now. Report to me if anything comes up," Wei Zhao said.

"Yes. I take my leave," Xin Yi'an said, and withdrew at once.

"Heh, I rather underestimated Elder Xin before. Who'd have thought he'd show such nerve when the crunch came. By the way, Boss, what are the rest of us to do?" Wu Chengtian and the others asked.

"You? Cultivate, of course. That is your sole task at present. Pay no mind to any of this other crap—leave it all to me," Wei Zhao said. Compared with the others' cultivation, all these petty troubles were nothing but a fart in his eyes.

"All right." The others exchanged glances. They too could tell what mattered and what did not, and promptly dispersed to cultivate on their own.

Wei Zhao himself did not idle. Besides cultivating, he had to find the time to study the One Step to Heaven Formation that held them all prisoner. It posed no threat for the moment, but if he could never find a way to break it, it would be a nuisance sooner or later.

In the end, half a day later, Wei Zhao gave up.

It was just as Xin Yi'an had said: the One Step to Heaven Formation seemed to have nothing fearsome about it, yet it had no blind spot in any direction, and not the slightest flaw could be found.

Still, it was not entirely wasted effort. Wei Zhao had, after all, teased out a few useful scraps of information: this appeared to be a restrictive formation built specifically to imprison people, and what held them was not an ordinary physical barrier but a highly refined spatial barrier.

By Wei Zhao's estimate, this spatial barrier had three layers in all. The two outer layers were the more common physical barriers; once an external force grew strong enough, such barriers would break, and with his strength that was no great difficulty. The key lay in the fact that between these two physical barriers was sandwiched a layer of spatial barrier—invisible, impalpable, yet objectively present.

This layer of spatial barrier had an utterly marvelous effect, which could be summed up in four words: a foot away, yet worlds apart.

Thin as it was, once you were caught in it you could never reach the end; to cross it was simply as hard as ascending to heaven.

"One Step to Heaven—so that is what it means." Only at this moment did Wei Zhao truly understand the meaning of those four words. No wonder it was said that unless one possessed the power to ascend to heaven in a single step, there was no crossing it at all; no matter how strong you were, it was useless.

This discovery left Wei Zhao at a loss for the moment. He had thought that relying on the advantages of his Nascent Soul, he should have little trouble finding a gap—but he found that before the spatial barrier of "a foot away, yet worlds apart," the Nascent Soul was no different from the physical body. A distance the body could not cross, the Nascent Soul could not easily cross either; one could only gaze at it and sigh. (To be continued.)