Divine Maiden’s Robe City, Wuming Manor.
Zhang Ruochen stood on the lakeside, mist swirling around him, breathing in the heart-gladdening fragrance of flowers. This was the very manor where he had once met Huang Tian.
Yu Rumour, like an immortal stepped out of a painting, stood by the water and said, “Shang Hong is one of the most powerful gods born in this cosmic cycle, the representative of our age. He has cultivated for nearly a hundred thousand years. You are still far from his equal.”
“Thank you, senior, for your assistance,” Zhang Ruochen replied.
It was a strange scene: a white-haired, aged old man addressing a peerlessly beautiful young woman as “senior”.
Zhang Ruochen said “assistance” rather than “rescue”.
Clearly, he was thanking her for using the array to seal the battlefield, preventing Wu Ma Jiuxing from escaping and giving him the chance to kill the god.
Yu Rumour continued, “By killing Wu Ma Jiuxing, you have forged a great enmity with the Blade God Realm. The moment you leave Xing Huan Tian, you may well face mortal tribulation. You may declare to the worlds that you are my disciple. In that case, Blade Venerable will at least refrain from acting personally.”
Zhang Ruochen believed in the strength of Yu Rumour’s spiritual force, but he did not believe her name alone could make Blade Venerable hesitate.
Blade Venerable was not only the sovereign of blade dao; he was the lord of an entire realm, the Blade God Realm.
Yet since she dared say it, there must be a reason.
“Why help me?” Zhang Ruochen asked.
“Because…”
Yu Rumour’s gaze drifted toward the ancient pavilion where Huang Tian had once drunk wine. She did not finish the sentence and simply drifted away, leaving Yuyuan Pavilion.
“He said that if you truly desire the Heavenly Venerable’s Treasure Gauze, once you have thought it through clearly, go to him at the Heavenly Venerable Lake on Mi Mountain,” her clear, ethereal voice reached Zhang Ruochen’s ears.
Zhang Ruochen knew exactly who “he” was. His whole body trembled, then he gave a wry smile and muttered to himself, “As expected of Huang Tian. What a formidable man. We had never met before, yet after only one encounter he saw straight through my identity.”
Such perception was beyond A Le, beyond Yu Chenjing, beyond Bai Qing’er, beyond even Yu Rumour.
Some among them were his life-and-death companions, some were geniuses of supreme intellect, some possessed unfathomable spiritual force, yet none matched Huang Tian.
If Huang Tian had not seen through him, why would he deliberately offer the Heavenly Venerable’s Treasure Gauze?
A thousand years ago, when Zhang Ruochen vanished, God of War Xue Jue suspected Bai Qing’er’s involvement. He stormed the First Divine Maiden City and even went to curse Huang Tian. Given Xue Jue’s unbridled tongue, how could Huang Tian be unaware of the connection between Zhang Ruochen and Bai Qing’er?
And how did Xue Jue know?
Because the Nether King knew.
Zhang Ruochen settled in Yuyuan Pavilion, paying no heed to the colossal upheaval caused by the deaths of Mo Tong and Wu Ma Jiuxing. The rights and wrongs of the outside world seemed to have nothing to do with him.
When his spiritual force broke through to the seventy-fourth order, he clearly felt the fire of life within him burn a little stronger, and his lifespan showed signs of increase.
But very soon his lifespan began draining away again at terrifying speed, and the fire of life dwindled once more to a single thread.
Zhang Ruochen distinctly sensed that both lifespan and vital essence were pouring into the mysterious foetus, as though something were sucking them away, vanishing without trace.
It was precisely because of this extremely unnatural phenomenon that he chose seclusion, intending to study the mysterious foetus carefully.
Perhaps within that foetus lay the key to restoring his lifespan and turning death into life.
“How can there be nothing at all?”
Zhang Ruochen tried many methods: first probing with spiritual force, then drawing in strands of saint qi and divine qi from heaven and earth and pouring them into the foetus.
Yet the moment spiritual force, saint qi, or divine qi entered, they disappeared instantly.
It was bizarre to the extreme.
Zhang Ruochen was even tempted to take a sword and cut open his own belly to dig the foetus out, but he suppressed the reckless impulse.
He knew that although Yu Rumour appeared young, her true age was probably hundreds of thousands of years. She must be a vastly learned and powerful being. So he sought her counsel.
“The mysterious foetus?”
Yu Rumour gave Zhang Ruochen a meaningful glance before saying, “The mysterious foetus is also called the Mysterious Female. Every living being possesses one within their body, but not every being can open it.”
“In the remote antiquity, qi refiners dominated the universe and suppressed even the invincible witch dao. What those qi refiners cultivated was precisely the mysterious foetus.”
“In their view, the mysterious foetus was part of the Heavenly Dao, the bridge by which living beings communicated with heaven and earth, the source of life for all things.”
“Yet at the end of remote antiquity, a great tribulation struck. The rules of heaven and earth changed, and those still able to open the mysterious foetus became exceedingly rare. Thus the qi refiners walked the road to ruin.”
Zhang Ruochen asked, “Will the mysterious foetus devour a cultivator’s life force? Will it devour saint qi, divine qi, or spiritual force?”
“In the eyes of qi refiners, the mysterious foetus is the place where life force is nurtured and where saint qi and divine qi are stored. What do you mean by ‘devour’?” replied Yu Rumour.
Zhang Ruochen said, “I mean they vanish inexplicably.”
“Is this the problem you yourself are experiencing?” asked Yu Rumour.
Zhang Ruochen knew he could not conceal it from her, yet he still said, “No, it is a very close friend of mine.”
“Is that so?”
Yu Rumour slowly extended her delicate right hand, five snow-white fingers reaching toward Zhang Ruochen’s navel.
Spiritual force turned into threads of light-mist and flowed into the foetus.
But in only an instant, Yu Rumour withdrew her spiritual force.
A trace of unusual emotion appeared in her ever-calm eyes. “There is indeed something wrong with your mysterious foetus. Even my spiritual force vanished the moment it entered. I cannot probe it at all.”
“I can only sense that the foetus is completely empty, containing nothing whatsoever,” said Zhang Ruochen.
“That cannot be truly empty. It must be that you cannot detect what is there.”
Yu Rumour brought two fingers together. Powerful spiritual force condensed at their tips into a brilliant beam of light, and she pointed across the empty air once more.
Under the influence of her spiritual force, the plants and trees of Yuyuan Pavilion grew wildly.
Sacred flowers bloomed and withered, withered and bloomed again, petals falling endlessly to the ground only to rise once more and dance through the manor.
Zhang Ruochen’s white hair flew about. Intense pain flared in his abdomen, but he gritted his teeth and endured.
Whoosh!
After an unknown length of time, Yu Rumour withdrew her spiritual force again. Fine beads of fragrant sweat had appeared on her forehead, and her eyes were filled with disbelief. “How peculiar! The spiritual force I just sent into your mysterious foetus was enough to burst a seventy-fourth-order spiritual-force god apart. Yet it was absorbed completely, as though the foetus were a bottomless pit. How is this possible?”
At first Zhang Ruochen had harboured some hope, believing the foetus might be the means to regenerate life force and martial cultivation. But now even a powerhouse like Yu Rumour was helpless; clearly the heavens had played another cruel joke on him.
His state of mind returned to tranquillity. “Regardless, thank you, Master.”
“Master?”
Yu Rumour shook her head noncommittally and departed with a belly full of questions. Evidently the secrets upon Zhang Ruochen had aroused considerable curiosity in her; she intended to consult ancient records and study the matter thoroughly.
Zhang Ruochen had called her “Master” not because he wished to take her as his teacher, but because he truly owed her a great favour. A simple “thank you” felt too thin.
Returning to his room, he ceased probing the mysterious foetus and took out the stone cauldron.
Upon the cauldron, both the Six Patriarchs’ Sanskrit inscriptions and the Udumbara flower mark had faded considerably. Perhaps slaying Wu Ma Jiuxing had consumed much of the power they contained.
Zhang Ruochen mobilised his spiritual force, drew strands of divine qi from heaven and earth, transformed them into flame, and began refining the cauldron.
Moments later, a large expanse of black characters appeared on the bottom inside the cauldron.
These black characters too had grown much fainter.
Previously his spiritual force had been insufficient to decipher the scripture left by Yin Xuetian. Now that his spiritual strength had greatly increased, he wished to try again.
As his spiritual force spread toward the black characters,
the entire world seemed to become a dark forest. Each character was a towering sacred mountain containing boundless vastness, yet shrouded in thick black mist, impossible to perceive truly.
After three full hours, his spiritual force almost exhausted, he barely managed to decipher three characters.
“Nether Soldiers Scroll!”
“It is actually the Nether Soldiers Scroll of the Eight Nether Volumes. The Peerless Zen Maiden searched bitterly for it yet never found it. Who would have thought Yin Xuetian simply placed it in the most conspicuous spot in his dojo? He probably left it deliberately for her.”
Zhang Ruochen felt as though his body had been drained hollow. He panted heavily, utterly spent, yet he laughed so hard tears nearly fell.
Truly the whims of fate.
If Peerless Zen Maiden learned that such a priceless treasure had been handed over to Zhang Ruochen, what expression would she wear?
With the Nether Soldiers Scroll in his grasp, she would be able to command the divine army Yin Xuetian had left behind.
“I must first decipher the entire Nether Soldiers Scroll. If it vanishes along with the Udumbara mark, that would be a terrible pity.”
Zhang Ruochen struggled to sit upright with his aged and weary body, assumed a meditative posture, and began recuperating his spiritual force, striving to recover as quickly as possible.
Late that night,
the melodious and pleasing sound of bronze chimes reached Zhang Ruochen’s ears.
The chime music was rich with ancient charm, sometimes long and lingering, sometimes short and brisk.
Zhang Ruochen opened his aged eyes, a strange light flashing within them. He stepped down from the bed, opened the window, and the chime music became even clearer.
Looking out,
he saw a woman in white as though painted into the scene, standing in the ancient lakeside pavilion, striking three rows of bronze chimes.
She was like a spirit of the night, or an elf of music. The melody she played was exquisitely beautiful, drawing one irresistibly into intoxication. Her dark hair fell to her waist, held by a phoenix hairpin. Her neck was slender, her jade waist supple as willow. Even her back view alone inspired endless reverie of beauty.
In the purple bamboo grove, the old yellow ox that had already fallen asleep began licking its own hind leg, apparently dreaming some sweet dream under the spell of the music.
Zhang Ruochen pushed open the door, walked to the edge of the pavilion, and quietly watched her.
A gentle breeze stirred. One piece ended.
Bai Qing’er set the bronze mallet back on its stand, placed her exquisite little hands behind her back, and gazed at the moonlit mist on the lake. “Do you know that Yuyuan Pavilion is an extremely special place? Ordinary cultivators are not qualified even to enter, let alone reside here. Living in Yuyuan Pavilion is almost taboo.”
