When he saw that Su Yi had no intention of pursuing this, Chang Guoke clasped his fist in gratitude. “Many thanks for your magnanimity.”

The swordsman with the curly beard obviously held Su Yi in far greater awe than before.

However, there was no discomfort mixed in with his respect. He seemed to have something to say, yet he couldn’t quite say it. There was obviously something off about his mood.

Su Yi said thoughtfully, “And here I thought that after I killed Lu Dongliu and his companions, as an inheritor of the Hidden Dragon Sword Sect, you’d view me with enmity too.”

Chang Guoke instantly felt awkward and a bit embarrassed. Quite some time passed before he laughed bitterly, “Young Lord Su, you saved my life. I, Chang Guoke, am not the type to repay kindness with enmity.”

“Being stuck in the middle like this must be uncomfortable,” said Su Yi. “There’s no need for this. I care more about the heart than its vestiges. Even if your sect forces you to become my enemy, I won’t be angry with you.”

Chang Guoke was stunned.

It was then that a fire-plumed crane descended from the heavens. An elderly Daoist with an immortal bearing rode on its back. Despite his age, his eyes were as bright as child’s. 

This was the very picture of an immortal riding a crane, and the scene threw the entire area into uproar.

Chang Guoke, Qing Jin, and Qi Lianjue’s expressions were instantly serious as they greeted this new arrival. “Your disciples greet you, Master!”

The Pineflame Daoist!

He was the high elder of the Hidden Dragon Sword Sect, third in the sect’s seniority. He was also a long-famous Earthly Immortal!

When the martial artists present recognized the Pineflame Daoist, they couldn’t help but gasp. All were visibly stunned.

This was an existence akin to an immortal or god, and it had been years since he last showed himself in public. Yet now, here he was, landing before Dragon’s Gate Pass on the back of a crane!

The atmosphere was instantly solemn and oppressive.

The Pineflame Daoist dismounted and landed on the ground. His gaze swept across the surrounding area. “What happened just now?”

His voice boomed like a morning bell or twilight drum, spreading far and wide.

Qing Jin immediately stepped up and whispered a brief explanation.

Whoosh!

When she finished, the Pineflame Daoist’s intimidating gaze crackled with electricity. He stared at the distant Su Yi, a strange look floating up onto his face. “You… You’re Su Yi?”

Su Yi said calmly, “It seems few in this world would dare impersonate me.”

The Pineflame Daoist fell momentarily silent. Suddenly, he gestured to Chang Guoke. “Apprentice, come with me. Let him leave.”

His tone left no room for argument.

Chang Guoke instantly felt pressured, and he hesitated.

Su Yi said, “Go on. Remember what I said: I care more about the heart than its vestiges.”

Chang Guoke’s face filled with shame. He lowered his voice and said, “Young Lord Su, you saved my life. I absolutely will never forget your benevolence!”

With that, he turned to leave.

To disobey his master’s orders would make him disloyal, but to fall out with me would go against righteousness. He’s really in a tight spot… Su Yi thought to himself. Fortunately, he isn’t the type to forget a favor. That’s enough.

As he thought, Su Yi turned and walked through Dragon’s Gate Pass. From beginning to end, the Pineflame Daoist just watched coldly. He made no attempts to stop him. 

The onlookers couldn’t help but find it strange.

Word that Su Yi had killed the Hidden Dragon Sword Sect’s Lu Dongliu had long since shaken the entire Great Zhou.

No one would have guessed that the Pineflame Daoist would let Su Yi go so easily. To their surprise, no such scene unfolded.

It was only after Su Yi’s figure disappeared completely from view that Chang Guoke and Qing Jin sighed in relief. Both of them had long since broken into cold sweats; they’d been worried that one wrong word would provoke their master into attacking.

Only Qi Lianjue seemed to understand. “Master, are you planning to let Su Yi enter the Jade Capital so that Family Head Su can take care of him himself?”

However, the Pineflame Daoist shook his head and sighed. “I just received word that two hours ago, Vice Sect Leader Shi Fengliu clashed with Su Yi above the Qinglan River, only for Su Yi to slay his mount and send him retreating in disgrace.”

The crowd’s hair stood on end, and they looked at each other in shock. 

Shi Fengliu was an Earthly Immortal who’d mastered a sword intent and possessed all manner of secret arts!

Even he’d been forced to flee from Su Yi. Who wouldn’t have been surprised to hear this?

Only now did they understand why the Pineflame Daoist hadn’t intervened. He wasn’t sure he could win!

“Rest assured. Now that the boy has reached the Jade Capital, he’s sure to encounter fatal disaster. When the time comes, there will be no need for the Hidden Dragon Sword Sect to take action; he has almost no chance of getting out of this alive,” said the Pineflame Daoist coldly. “What we need to do now is draw a line between him and us. We absolutely cannot have even the slightest connection to him!”

As he spoke, he glanced at Chang Guoke and Qing Jin. The implied warning was readily apparent.

Chang Guoke felt pained, and he sighed to himself. 

Qing Jin’s emotions were complex and hard to pinpoint. 

She and Su Yi weren’t friends; he’d even slapped her across the face once, which she’d been indignant and upset about ever since.

She ought to have been happy knowing that Su Yi was about to encounter numerous potentially fatal dangers here in the Jade Capital. Yet for some reason, she couldn’t quite manage it.

“Come on, we ought to head to the capital too.” The Pineflame Daoist then led Chang Guoke and Qing Jin away.

Meanwhile, a messenger sparrow hawk left Dragon’s Gate Pass and took to the skies, streaking toward the Jade Capital at the highest possible speeds.

Su Yi had arrived at Dragon’s Gate Pass. This was major news, and they had to report it right away.

……

……

“So this is the Jade Capital. It's actually somewhat impressive.”

An hour later.

Su Yi saw the outline of a city appear off in the distance, just over the horizon. There was no end in sight.

The thousand-foot walls towered into the sky, like a giant dragon. Beneath the light of the heavens, they shone with radiant gold luster, a magnificent sight.

The smoke of the mortal world’s chimneys rose into the air, and the dense spiritual energy fluctuations were shocking. In addition, there were occasional clouds of purple smoke, but these were almost impossible for ordinary people to see.

This was the imperial qi unique to those lands with an emperor in residence!

Purple air flew in from the east, and the emperor governed ten thousand territories. 

This was the pattern of the nation’s spirit veins. Any mortal nation would, when deciding where to build its capital, have a cultivator proficient in geomancy seek out spirit veins. This would bless and enrich the nation. 

Of course, to Su Yi, so called “imperial air” was actually the formless aura of the masses.

Those who won the people’s support become the sons of heaven, men like true dragons. They could direct the fate of an entire nation.

But upon losing the people’s support, their collective aura would leave you and disappear like a cloud of smoke.

An emperor was to his nation as an idol statue was to its temple. He received the faith power of the masses, which naturally manifested as an inscrutable and divine aura.

There were even cultivators who specialized in using the incense of the mortal world to prove their Dao. They used incense and other expressions of worship to gather the faith power of the masses and form a golden body.

This was the “Dao of Incense.”

However, this was just an aberrant branch of cultivation. Some even considered it a heretical or crooked path, and most peak-level ancient orthodoxies disdained this approach.

The purple air of the Jade Capital is ordinary at best. If I’m not mistaken, the current emperor of the Great Zhou has yet to break into the Origin Dao.

Or perhaps, from the moment he sat upon the throne and accepted responsibility for the nation’s prosperity, reaching the Origin Dao became far more difficult; if he does so, the masses will cast him aside.

“What does the general populace need? Definitely not a cultivator fixated on achieving immortality and pursuing the Dao. As Su Yi thought, he strolled leisurely ahead.

However, Su Yi also knew full well that there were always exceptions. The emperor’s hope of proving Dao while ruling over the masses was fleeting, but this wasn’t entirely impossible.

All he needed was to imitate those cultivators who relied on “the Dao of Incense”, using the faith of the masses as his foundations in the Grand Dao. That way, he could soar to greater heights.

The disadvantage of this approach was that although collective faith could give you power, it could also take it away!

Should the nation fail to prosper, should the people be discontented, should the nation fall apart, one’s cultivation would suffer a backlash!

But then, there was no doubt about it: the emperor wasn’t pursuing that particular path. Otherwise, the purple air lingering over the capital wouldn’t have been so ordinary.

As he approached the towering, imposing city gates, he gradually saw the human traffic flowing in and out of the city, and the sound of hustle and bustle emanated from afar.

He was still outside the city. This was but a first glimpse of the bustling atmosphere of a national capital.

When he saw this, remembrance rose unbidden to Su Yi’s gaze.

The winter of his fourteenth year, he braved a blizzard and left the Su Family and the Jade Capital on his own.

Now, three years later, he’d come back.

However, he was no longer the weak, lonely boy he’d once been.

My memories of this city really have been engraved into my bones. If I don’t sever this grudge, it’ll affect my mental state going forward… Su Yi’s gaze was deep and inscrutable, like the stagnant waters of an ancient well.

He could clearly sense that as he stood before the Jade Capital, memories he’d long since sealed deep within his heart reawakened, flowing into his consciousness like waters bursting through a dam.

He didn’t try to stop this from happening.

All of these were his experiences in this lifetime. There was no need to suppress them.

In the end, a blazing hatred and fury filled his heart and mind.

This was hatred for the Jade Capital’s Su Family.

The rage following his mother’s death had accumulated for years. The flames of fury blazed within him, and there was no way to simply get rid of or disperse them.

After a while, Su Yi let out a breath of turbid air, put his hands behind his back, and slipped into the bustling flow of human traffic. He passed through the gates, and before long, his tall, lean figure disappeared from view.

That day, news of Su Yi’s arrival in the Jade Capital spread throughout the city at the fastest possible speed, drawing countless people’s attention. 

“He left the Imperatorial Province and began his journey to the Jade Capital on the fourth. Who would have thought… that he’d actually make it here alive?” sighed an elder with great emotion.

“The boy slew an Earthly Immortal on his way here. A storm has been brewing in the Jade Capital for a long time. Now that he’s here, it’s finally time for the curtains to open!”

“I just don’t know how great a disturbance Su Yi will cause, or how this will end for him…” Some people were full of eagerness.

“Quick, send someone to investigate. Find out where he takes up residence and how many factions are acting in secret. Be quick about it!”

The leaders of some of the city’s more prominent factions picked up on an entirely different “scent”, and they passed on their orders, putting their spies to work.

…

As darkness fell, the light of dusk shone like fire.

Deep within the imperial palace.

“You only just arrived in the Jade Capital, but you’ve already brought a storm to the city. Impressive, Su Yi!” 

The emperor of the Great Zhou sat atop his throne. He wore wide-sleeved robes, and his long hair hung loose behind his back. He placed the secret intelligence report he’d just received on the table beside him with a resounding thwap.

Then, he rose from his throne, his gaze as deep as the ocean, and faced the hall’s entryway.

“Pass on my orders: from this day forth, the Shadow Dragon Guards are to keep a close eye on Su Yi’s movements. I’m actually rather eager to see just how many waves he can stir up in the Jade Capital!”

The idiom Su Yi uses with Chang Guoke, “論心不論跡”, or “considers the heart, not its vestiges" basically means that he cares more about Chang Guoke’s good intentions than what he actually does. A less literal translation would be "I care more about your intentions than your deeds", but IMO the literal translation is cooler here. If I see mass confusion in the comments, I'll change it back.

This phrase comes from a longer line about filial piety. I can’t find an English source for the full quote, just a few references to the more famous first five-character chunk, “百善孝爲先”, or “filial piety is the foremost of all virtues.”

The full quote is divided in two, comparing different approaches for judging virtue and vice. Classical Chinese loves that stuff; they were big into parallelism. Anyway, I think this stuff is cool, so I thought I’d share with those of you who are interested. 

Original: 百善孝爲先，論心不論跡，論跡貧家無孝子；萬惡淫爲首，論跡不論心，論心世上少完人.

My rough translation: Of all virtues, filial piety is foremost. (When judging it), consider a man’s heart, not his deeds. If you judge by deeds alone, poor families have no filial sons. Of all vices, licentiousness is foremost. (When judging it), consider a man’s deeds, not his heart. If you judge the heart alone, there are no innocent men. 

The last half is pretty self-explanatory: everyone has dirty/bad thoughts sometimes, so judge people based on whether or not they act on them. 

The first half is more interesting. The idea is that a wealthy man can easily take good care of his parents in their old age with very little personal sacrifice. Providing his parents a luxurious retirement doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s filial; he might just be doing it to look good, and it won’t really hurt his bottom line anyway. Whether he’s truly filial or not depends on why he’s taking care of his parents and the effort he puts into it, not what level of creature comforts he can provide.

Conversely, a poor man might not be able to let his aged parents live in luxury, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t filial; he just has limited means to express the piety in his heart. The line is saying not to just assume that someone who gives their parents more loves them more, and that you should consider their situation and intention when judging how filial they are.

Su Yi is obviously not Chang Guoke’s parent, so I interpret this as him saying, “I know that your hands are tied, and I won’t fault you if the situation forces your hand.”

Chang Guoke can’t help Su Yi. Someone in a better position might be able to help Su Yi more, but that wouldn’t necessarily make them more sincere than Chang Guoke; they just might have more leverage, y’know?