The Moon Within Dream's plan had failed utterly.
Looking down at the Wenjian Sect below — a sect where almost no one had chosen to join Penglai — Penglai's Sect Head found herself, for the first time, sinking into self-doubt.
Every person under heaven carried regrets, and where there was regret there was a crack to exploit — yet somehow, in the Wenjian Sect, that wasn't so.
Could it be that the path of mending regrets had truly gone out of fashion in the world outside?
Or had the Fellow Daoists of today's cultivation world actually cultivated their Dao Hearts to the point where no one held any regret at all?
Or was it simply something particular to the Wenjian Sect?
The more Penglai's Sect Head thought about it, the more something felt off, and her thoughts drifted back to the years when she still walked among the living.
She remembered that even back then, there had been a Fellow Daoist called the Fate-Reversing Tribulation-Severing Sovereign — eccentric in his ways, obsessed with the sword above all else, who had single-handedly sealed off the Seventh Realm path for most of the cultivation world, offended nearly every Sovereign alive, and still gone on living and kicking. That one, too, had come out of the Wenjian Sect.
Thousands of years ago it produced a Fate-Reversing Tribulation-Severing Sovereign; thousands of years later, a Gu Chengming — on top of this whole nest of stubborn oddballs who wouldn't budge for anything.
Say what you will, but was there really something uncanny about this Wenjian Sect place?
Penglai's Sect Head propped her chin in her hand, gazing down at the sect with its ordinary lantern-lights, and for the first time felt a deep unease about the future of her own great tribulation.
On the other side, within the Wenjian Sect.
Gu Chengming, too, was racking his brains over how to bring this great tribulation to an end.
He'd won the wager, but winning the wager wasn't the same as resolving the tribulation.
That moon — the Moon Within Dream — still hung there in the sky, perfectly intact. Today it had kept its word and left the Wenjian Sect untouched, but what about tomorrow?
Once it left the Wenjian Sect to go wreak havoc on some other sect or city, how long could places with less iron-clad Dao Hearts possibly hold out?
A frontal assault wouldn't work.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign had already made the matter plain: the Moon Within Dream was condensed from half the authority of the Heaven Moon — a genuine Dharma-Station-level artifact. Even a Sixth Realm Sovereign going all out might not be able to do much against it, and could instead drive it to desperation, forcing an early harvest.
Talking it down wouldn't work either.
That Penglai Sect Head's obsession was as unshakable as bedrock, and she saw through the outside world with perfect clarity — hoping a few well-chosen words could make her suddenly repent and dissolve of her own accord was nothing but a pipe dream.
Gu Chengming had been pacing the courtyard for half the night when he suddenly stopped.
Wait.
He seemed to have been thinking about this all wrong from the start.
Without realizing it, he'd been treating the Moon Within Dream as an enemy, racking his brain over nothing but how to destroy it.
But what was the true nature of the Moon Within Dream?
An obsession.
And what lay at the core of an obsession? That Penglai Sect Head who had erased even her true name and Dao title.
And when it came to dealing with a flesh-and-blood person with an obsession—
— wasn't the obvious solution simply to romance her, the way his Galgame-veteran instincts told him to?
The next day, when Gu Chengming laid out his idea to the others, the whole courtyard fell silent.
"You mean to romance the tribulation itself?"
Ren Wencai wondered if something was wrong with his ears.
"To be precise, I mean to win over the obsession of that Penglai Sect Head," Gu Chengming corrected. "Think about it, Master — if we can't win by force, the only path left is to follow her obsession inward. Her obsession is rebuilding Penglai, but rebuilding Penglai is only the surface. Underneath that surface lies the real knot in her heart, and that's the true lifeline of this tribulation. Untangle the knot, and the tribulation will dissolve on its own."
"That's..." Shen Ganqiu stroked his beard, hesitating. "The reasoning holds, but something like an obsession — how can it simply be untangled at will?"
"An ordinary person certainly couldn't."
But I happen to be a Galgame veteran!
Naturally, he kept that thought to himself, and said something else aloud instead:
"This junior happens to have a fair bit of experience untangling all sorts of knots in the heart. I only need you seniors to do one thing for me..."
Three days later, in the Moon Within Dream.
Penglai's Sect Head was gazing idly down at the mortal world when she suddenly felt a ripple pass through the heaven-and-earth within the moon. Looking up, she found that young friend Gu had stepped in of his own accord once again — and this time he'd brought an entire procession trailing behind him.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign, Arnold, Yu Wenqiu, Mo Wu, along with Ren Wencai and Shen Ganqiu — the whole lot had turned out in force.
Penglai's Sect Head raised an eyebrow, alarm bells ringing in her mind.
Had he flown into a rage and come to tear down her Penglai by force?
She was quietly on guard when Gu Chengming stepped forward and cupped his fists in a bow.
"Senior, this junior has come wishing to stay in Penglai for a few days."
Penglai's Sect Head: "...?"
"Have you finally come around, young friend?" She sized him up suspiciously, sure there had to be some trick to this.
Gu Chengming shook his head, perfectly open about it. "This junior still won't be joining Penglai. But Senior said before that Penglai only takes those who come willingly, never by force — so surely Penglai treats its guests the same way, free to come and go? I and these elders would like to stay in your Penglai for a few days as 'guests,' and take a look around."
"Look around?"
"Exactly."
Gu Chengming smiled, harmless as anything. "Senior always says we're prejudiced against Penglai, that this is a place of free and boundless bliss. But we've never even seen the whole of it — how can our prejudice be dispelled without that? Why not simply let us stay openly? If it's truly as good as you say, we'll be convinced with all our hearts. And if it isn't quite what it claims, Senior will know exactly where the trouble lies, and can set it right in the future — isn't that so?"
Penglai's Sect Head studied him for a long moment and, try as she might, found no flaw in his logic.
"Very well." After weighing it over and over, Penglai's Sect Head slowly nodded. "But let me say this plainly first: once you're inside Penglai, you follow Penglai's rules."
"Of course."
Gu Chengming agreed at once, though what he was actually thinking was—
The romance route has begun!
Over the following days, the Penglai within the Moon Within Dream — unchanged for a thousand years — saw the liveliest stretch of days in its entire existence.
As a Galgame veteran, Gu Chengming knew perfectly well that to win over a character, you first had to win over her 'daily life.'
What was Penglai's Sect Head's daily life? Day after day maintaining this immortal sect suspended between reality and illusion, watching the 'sect disciples' who'd entered Penglai live out their days in peace within the bliss she'd woven — a thousand years, unchanging, flat and still as a pool of stagnant water.
But the group Gu Chengming brought turned that stagnant pool completely upside down on the very first day.
Arnold came first.
That senior took to Penglai like a fish to water the moment she arrived, dragging the 'Penglai disciples' into sparring matches one after another, and at the end of each still unsatisfied, hollering to the onlookers, 'Who's next?' The disciples, long accustomed to a life of blissful ease, were scared witless at first — but somehow, after a few days, more and more spectators gathered around the training grounds cheering, and a few with itchy palms actually formed a line to take their turn.
Inside the Sect Head's Hall, Penglai's Sect Head listened to those bursts of long-forgotten clamor, her expression complicated.
A land of pure bliss, wanting nothing, contending for nothing — and so, naturally, no one ever competed to win.
She had always thought this was perfection itself. Now, set against this contrast, she found in it a stillness she couldn't quite name.
Then came Ren Wencai and Shen Ganqiu.
The two old fellows entered Penglai and toured every mountain, stream, pavilion, and terrace one by one. When the mood struck them, they'd sit down with Penglai's 'disciples' for a chat — about their lives before entering Penglai, about whatever long-held wish had finally been fulfilled — and before long, the conversation would turn to their own sect.
"Our Wenjian Sect, well — it can't match the grandeur of this place."
Ren Wencai leaned against a peach tree, his tone easy. "But when our disciples wear themselves out practicing the sword, they cry. When a senior brother thrashes them, they hold a grudge. And if they sneak a drink from the Hidden Sword Pavilion's wine cellar, they get punished with sweeping the mountain gate."
The Penglai disciple he'd pulled into conversation listened, dazed, then suddenly asked in a low voice:
"What does it feel like, being punished to sweep the mountain gate?"
Ren Wencai blinked, then burst out laughing.
"What does it feel like? Your back aches, you curse under your breath the whole time, and once you're done you flop down at the gate and watch the sunset, dreading that tomorrow you'll have to go right back to practicing."
"That's just what life is."
Gu Chengming himself, meanwhile, was the most idle of them all these past few days — neither drawing attention to himself nor deliberately approaching Penglai's Sect Head, but instead keeping the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign company.
"This used to be the pill-refining chamber."
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign stood before an empty hall, remembering. "In my third year after joining the sect, I snuck in here with my senior sister, hoping to refine a batch of Qi-Gathering Pills. The furnace blew up instead. Our master had us both copy out pill-refining scriptures for three months."
This Penglai within the Moon Within Dream had been recreated by that Sect Head's obsession, down to the last blade of grass and every tree, all modeled after the days of old.
But however faithful the copy, it was still only a shell. Inside that shell, there was no senior sister who'd blow up the pill room, no master to punish her with copying scriptures, none of those living, breathing people.
"Senior." Gu Chengming spoke up suddenly. "Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival."
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign's steps faltered.
"This junior recalls Senior once mentioning..."
Gu Chengming looked at her. "During Mid-Autumn in Penglai, the whole mountain blooms with osmanthus. From a distance, it looks as if the moon has fallen onto the mountainside."
"The year Senior was trapped in the Land of Nowhere, you'd meant to go back to your sect and see the osmanthus one more time."
He paused, then smiled at her. "Since that's the case, let's make up for it tomorrow."
On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Gu Chengming sought out Penglai's Sect Head and got straight to the point. "Senior, this junior would like to borrow Penglai to host a Mid-Autumn banquet."
"A Mid-Autumn banquet?" Penglai's Sect Head raised an eyebrow.
"Exactly," Gu Chengming said. "The lot of us have imposed on Senior for several days now — it's time we returned the favor... and the banquet will be held right there."
He raised his hand, pointing toward a mountain deep within Penglai, one blanketed in blooming osmanthus.
Penglai's Sect Head followed the direction of his hand and froze for a moment.
"Why that mountain."
"Because admiring osmanthus at Mid-Autumn is simply how it's done."
Penglai's Sect Head seemed at once helpless and lost in some memory. She said quietly, "Fine."
That night, on Osmanthus Mountain.
For the first time in a thousand years, lanterns were lit along the long-deserted mountain path.
Ren Wencai and Shen Ganqiu busied themselves hauling up jars of wine. Arnold, strong as she was, carried seven or eight tables up the mountain single-handedly. Yu Wenqiu directed a crowd of curious Penglai disciples in hanging lanterns, and when they came out crooked and lopsided, she planted her hands on her hips and made them redo each one. Mo Wu, rare for her, had shed her usual cold reserve and sat beneath an osmanthus tree tuning an ancient zither she'd found from who knew where.
The osmanthus blossoms covered the whole mountain in full bloom; the night breeze stirred their golden petals into a soft rustling fall, mingling with the lantern-light until it truly looked as if the moon had shattered across the mountainside.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign walked up the mountain one step at a time — past the path she'd often used as a shortcut in her childhood, past the flat stone where she used to lie down to slack off, past the osmanthus tree she'd planted with her own hands, now grown into a broad, graceful canopy.
When she reached the summit, she stopped beneath the oldest osmanthus tree and tilted her head back.
Moonlight filtered down through the dense osmanthus branches, falling all over her.
A thousand years of time came crashing back in that instant. She seemed to become again that young disciple who blew up the pill room, who slacked off, who looked forward to Mid-Autumn — her master's scolding voice, her fellow disciples' laughter, the fragrance of osmanthus covering the whole mountain, all surged back like a tide, then receded like one.
When it receded, only the night wind remained — and a single osmanthus petal, real and solid, that had settled on her shoulder.
She reached out and caught the petal in her hand.
It was false... she knew that.
All this mountain of osmanthus, this entire Penglai — every bit of it was an illusion woven from obsession.
But this sight — this sight she had owed herself for ten thousand years — she had finally, at last, seen it through to the end.
"The osmanthus... it's still just as lovely."
Then she turned and walked back down toward the bustling lantern-light below.
Penglai's Sect Head had watched every bit of this. Standing alone on a pavilion facing Osmanthus Mountain, she gazed from afar at the lantern-lit mountainside she dared not set foot on, at the retreating figure of that senior of her own sect whose long-held wish had finally been fulfilled, at that boisterous crowd of drinking "guests," and said nothing for a long, long while.
A thousand years.
For the first time in a thousand years, her Penglai was this lively — and for the first time, this unlike her own Penglai.
Her Penglai was supposed to be blissful, complete, without regret.
But every person at this banquet carried some regret of their own.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign carried the regret of a lost homeland; Ren Wencai carried the regret of failing to nag someone into marriage; Yu Wenqiu carried the regret of not yet catching up to her Dao companion — and yet they carried those regrets just as they were, drinking, laughing, living with real warmth and fire.
And the disciples of her own Penglai — the ones whose long-held wishes had already been "fulfilled" — now mingled among the banquet crowd, listening to storytelling, watching sparring matches, and on those faces that had been still and silent for a thousand years, there now shone a light she had never once seen before.
"Senior."
Footsteps sounded behind her. Penglai's Sect Head didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
"You've staged quite the performance, young friend."
There was no telling anger or amusement in her tone. "The sightseeing was a pretense, the stay was a pretense — even this Mid-Autumn banquet, all of it aimed at me, wasn't it."
"The banquet is real. The osmanthus is real. Senior Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing's fulfilled wish is real too."
Gu Chengming walked up beside her, and together they looked out at the mountain full of lanterns. "There's only one thing that's true — this junior did come for you, Senior."
"Oh?"
"This junior would like to invite Senior down to share a drink as well."
Penglai's Sect Head froze, then let out a helpless laugh. "I am the lord of this tribulation. Sit at the same table as the rest of you?"
Gu Chengming turned to look at her, and suddenly asked a question that seemed to come from nowhere. "Senior, you rebuilt Penglai and opened it wide to take in the whole world, mending regrets for people everywhere — but you yourself... have you ever once counted yourself among those in this 'Penglai'?"
"Rebuilding Penglai was never Senior's own wish. Atonement was."
The night wind passed through the pavilion, rustling the osmanthus blossoms across the whole mountain.
"Since you've seen through it all," she finally spoke. "Then you should understand — Penglai fell by my own hand. My entire sect, the osmanthus that covered this whole mountain, all of it vanished before my very eyes."
"My own name doesn't deserve to survive. All I deserve is to become this tribulation, to fulfill Penglai's dream in its place..."
"Senior." Gu Chengming cut her off, and asked the question he'd been preparing to ask for so long.
"If every fellow disciple of Penglai were standing here tonight, Senior — do you think they'd want to see you carry the name of a 'great tribulation,' swallowing the lives of the world to atone for ten thousand years and more? Or would they want to see you speak your own name, and live once, properly, for Penglai's sake?"
He brought up how the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign had just now looked like someone whose long-held wish had finally been fulfilled, then said with a smile, "That's exactly why what Senior owes Penglai was never a false immortal sect — it's a proper farewell."
"And a farewell—"
He extended his hand, gesturing toward the sea of lantern-light below, toward that noisy, living, breathing Mid-Autumn banquet, in a gesture of invitation.
"— only counts once you've first spoken your name."
The mountain full of lantern-light flickered, on and off, reflected in Penglai's Sect Head's eyes.
For a thousand years, she had lived as nothing but Penglai's Sect Head, nameless, reduced to nothing but duty — guarding a paradise she had recreated with her own hands, fulfilling the dreams of the world until the end of time, believing that in doing so she could repay the debt she owed her entire sect.
She had believed her heart had long since become still water, that the small joys and sorrows of the past, along with that name, had sunk together with Penglai's fall into the deepest depths of time.
But these past few days, somehow, that long-settled resolve had been thrown into disarray by this uninvited group of guests.
The clamor at the training grounds, the storytelling that tugged at the heart, the leisurely chats among the mountains, the osmanthus lantern-light on the mountain she dared not walk into — every single one of these things had never belonged to the paradise she'd woven.
And yet it was precisely these things, full of ordinary human warmth and imperfection, that felt more like the Penglai of her memory than anything else.
She suddenly realized that she had, in fact, grown envious.
Envious of that senior of her own sect who, having fulfilled her wish, could now walk forward with a clear conscience. Envious of that group of guests who, carrying their own regrets, still lived with such vigor and warmth. They all had names. They all had a past they came from. They all dared to face the imperfections buried in their own hearts.
Only she did not.
She had arranged a place of belonging for everyone else, yet locked herself outside the door — unable even to speak a proper, dignified farewell.
And this young friend before her, who had seen through everything, was now asking her for only one thing.
A name.
Penglai's Sect Head gazed at the sea of lantern-light for a very, very long time. The name she had buried with her own hands for a thousand years, the vivid past she had erased along with that name, rose up now from the deepest depths of memory, carried by the fragrance of osmanthus and the sound of voices filling the mountain.
This Sect Head of Penglai, who had erased her true name, erased her Dao title, erased everything about where she'd come from, stood between a thousand years of obsession and a banquet of the living world — and at last, she spoke.
"Penglai Immortal Sect. Thirty-seventh generation. Its last Sect Head — Ye Qixia."
"I have failed Penglai."
The instant those words fell.
The entire Moon Within Dream shook with a thunderous tremor.
The cold, oppressive tribulation-qi shrouding Penglai receded like a tide. The eerie bright moon overhead flared with radiance, then gradually softened inch by inch, dissolving into countless points of firefly-like light that drifted down and scattered across the entire mountain.
Several days later, in the Wenjian Sect.
The second moon in the sky had vanished entirely.
Cultivators across the Nine Provinces, who had trembled with fear over it, now celebrated with relief, all declaring that Heaven had blessed the cultivation world and the great tribulation had resolved itself.
— Only a handful of great powers vaguely sensed that the tribulation seemed to have ended within the Wenjian Sect's territory, though as for exactly how, opinions varied wildly and no consensus could be reached.
After all, no one dared believe an explanation like "they threw a Mid-Autumn banquet and the great tribulation simply vanished."
On the mountain behind the sect, Gu Chengming sat cross-legged alone, studying the phantom moon-disc resting in his palm. Within his Sea of Consciousness, his techniques had already erupted into an uproar.
[Hundred Bones Resonance cheers: Heavenly Emperor Gu! You've even romanced a great tribulation! This Emperor always said there's nothing in this world Heavenly Emperor Gu can't take down—]
[Qingxin Formula covers her mouth, laughing softly: First a cultivation technique, then a Sovereign, and now not even a great tribulation is spared. Surely the next thing Chengming romances won't be the Heavenly Dao itself?]
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method, thoughtfully: If it really comes to that, who would be the primary consort?]
Gu Chengming gave a helpless smile at the dialogue boxes floating before him, then simply gazed at the moon-disc in his palm and let out a long breath.
The Penglai tribulation had come to its close.
But he knew perfectly well that this was merely the first fragment to have broken loose from the Great Tribulation of Heaven and Earth.
The upheavals at the Tribulation Grounds, those Sovereigns who might turn on him, the troubles still ahead — each would only grow larger than the last.
Still... he raised his eyes and looked down the mountain.
At the training grounds, Arnold was dragging a few outer-sect disciples along to "give them pointers on body cultivation." Under the eaves, Yu Wenqiu sat with her feet up, reading a storybook. Gu Chengming smiled and tucked the moon-disc away into his sleeve.
Whatever came, he'd meet it — soldiers with a general, floodwater with earthen dikes.
After all, in his story, there was no room allowed for regret.
____
Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 20 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉