Zhang Ruochen put away the two cauldrons and came beneath the bodhi tree. As the melodious sound of the flute rose, the bodhi leaf placed on the bright mirror platform did indeed move from time to time.
There was no wind.
It moved three times in succession, then no matter what tune Kong Lanyou played, the bodhi leaf remained completely still.
She could only stop, gazing with quiet resentment at the leaf she had watched for a hundred years.
People speak of playing the qin to an ox, but playing the flute to a leaf is a thousand times, ten thousand times harder: dull, tedious, requiring immense resolve and persistence to reach this point after a century.
Zhang Ruochen smiled. “Why lose heart? In my eyes, you have already entered the inner halls of music. If the Path of Music had a Heavenly Master, you would be one now.”
Kong Lanyou’s white hair fell straight down, her face luminous as the moon. She said, “To become a Heavenly Master in any Path, one’s spiritual force must reach the sixty-ninth order and a half.”
“Have you not noticed that in this century, though you never deliberately cultivated spiritual force and only immersed yourself in music, your spiritual strength has still grown by a great margin?” Zhang Ruochen asked.
“There remains a gap to the sixty-ninth order and a half,” Kong Lanyou replied.
“You can already make a bodhi leaf tremble lightly with the sound of your flute. Let alone the sixty-ninth order and a half, even the seventieth order is only a matter of time. And I can make that time very short.”
Zhang Ruochen took out a Heart of the Divine Tree, a divine heart.
“The Heart of the Divine Tree contains the knowledge accumulated by the Heaven-Connecting Divine Tree over an entire aeon. If fully refined, it will not only raise your understanding of music by several levels, it will deepen your grasp of all knowledge between heaven and earth.”
“This divine heart belonged to the Black-Heart Demon Lord, but I have completely refined it. It can be absorbed directly, with no danger. The Black-Heart Demon Lord was a martial Great God whose spiritual force reached the seventy-fifth order.”
A divine heart was like a mass of red mist, the embodiment of a god’s spiritual force, akin to the divine source of a martial god.
Kong Lanyou naturally knew how priceless these two treasures were. Even Great Gods would covet them, yet she, a mere Saint-realm cultivator, was receiving them. Her feelings could no longer be described as mere gratitude.
Her starry eyes fixed tightly on Zhang Ruochen, glistening with unshed tears.
Zhang Ruochen smiled. “To be honest, I truly envy you.”
“Envy me? Cousin, you have already reached the Great God realm. How could you envy a Saint-realm cultivator like me?” Kong Lanyou was curious. She could think of nothing about herself worth Zhang Ruochen’s envy.
Zhang Ruochen patted her fragrant shoulder and spoke earnestly. “How could I not? If I had a cousin like this one… how wonderful that would be…”
Kong Lanyou laughed softly. The overwhelming gratitude and uncertainty in her heart eased, replaced by warmth.
What woman does not wish to be cherished and indulged?
Just as Zhang Ruochen turned to leave, slender arms encircled his waist from behind. Kong Lanyou’s voice came softly. “I will strive to catch up. I will never disappoint you, Cousin.”
Zhang Ruochen gently patted the soft hands resting on his waist. “Do not devote yourself only to cultivation. Go out and see the world too. The Qiankun Realm is quite lively. Come drink a pot of wine with me in the city, taste fish freshly caught from the river, watch the flower lanterns along the riverbank at night, and listen to the laughter of children chasing and playing…”
“Alright.”
Kong Lanyou, who had not wept upon receiving the Heart of the Divine Tree and the divine heart, now had tears tracing down her snow-white cheeks.
…
The Dark Triangle Star Region was truly too vast, seemingly endless. The old yellow ox flying outside had nearly reached the point of collapse.
It had flown for three years. Both its speed and its mastery of divine steps had reached the absolute pinnacle below godhood.
It had travelled countless billions of miles, yet before it lay only darkness and emptiness, with no end in sight.
Three years outside, yet beneath the sundial a millennium had passed.
Kong Lanyou had crossed her spiritual-force divine tribulation. She had fully refined and absorbed the Heart of the Divine Tree and the seventy-fifth-order divine heart. Her spiritual force had advanced by leaps and bounds, reaching the seventy-third order.
Beneath the bodhi tree, a beautiful woman stood alone, white hair cascading like a waterfall.
A three-foot golden flute rested against her crystal-clear, rosy lips. She played a lingering melody that seemed to recount a thousand years of worldly vicissitudes and lament the ruthlessness of time.
A bodhi leaf drifted around her, dancing lightly like a golden butterfly.
In that millennium, Zhang Ruochen and Kong Lanyou had entered the mortal world of the Qiankun Realm every year. They had made true friends, witnessed babies being born and youths coming of age, attended weddings and longevity banquets, and bid farewell to friends, paying respects at their graves.
A millennium was but the snap of a finger to gods, yet in the mortal world dozens of generations had passed, seas turning to mulberry fields.
But how could those mortals who lived but one lifetime know that Zhang Ruochen was trapped in the Dark Triangle Star Region?
In the end, gods have the world of gods, and mortals have the world of mortals.
After a millennium together, the bond between Zhang Ruochen and Kong Lanyou had deepened further.
Yet it was neither quite familial nor romantic. They would lean on each other, but always stopped at the appropriate point.
Kong Lanyou no longer regarded romantic love between men and women as supremely important. Now she devoted more energy to music and spiritual-force cultivation. Her aura grew ever more serene and transcendent.
However, if Zhang Ruochen wished to take things further, she would never refuse.
The golden flute in her hand had been forged from a branch that had fallen from the bodhi tree. It possessed extraordinary spirituality. It was no ordinary branch; its hardness was extreme, and Zhang Ruochen had expended great effort to craft it into a flute.
Zhang Ruochen’s progress was naturally greater. His spiritual force had reached the peak of the seventy-seventh order. At the same time, he had completely refined all the divine qi left by Zhao Wuyan, achieving his small goal.
His divine qi had grown tenfold thicker, and the strength of his regulus divine patterns had doubled.
This was something only a mid-Taiyi realm god could accomplish.
“Those mid-Taiyi gods next seek to increase the number of regulus divine patterns within them. Only when they accumulate ten times as many do they enter the peak of Taiyi. I shall follow the same path. Yet this will take vast amounts of time, at least ten thousand years.”
Having ten times the regulus divine patterns of the mid-stage was merely the starting point for peak Taiyi.
Some peak-Taiyi Great Gods possessed dozens of times more regulus divine patterns than mid-Taiyi Great Gods. A mid-Taiyi Great God needed to master vast numbers of profound mysteries to fight above their realm and contend with them.
As for the Taibai realm, the gap with peak Taiyi was like heaven and earth.
Zhang Ruochen had only a rough estimate of just how powerful it was.
After all, he had never truly fought a prolonged, all-out battle alone against a Taibai-realm Great God. When he had clashed with the Frost City Demon, the primary combatant had always been Xuan Yuan Qing.
A casual finger-sword from the Frost City Demon, probably only two or three tenths of its strength, had still wounded the Zhang Ruochen of that time from afar.
Of course, the present Zhang Ruochen was no longer the same.
After Kong Lanyou became a god, Zhang Ruochen gave her more of the cultivation time, for the sundial could only support one Great God in accelerated cultivation.
“If we can leave the Dark Triangle Star Region, the first priority must be to find an artifact spirit for the sundial.”
The moment this thought arose in Zhang Ruochen’s mind, a wildly excited bellow came from outside the scroll: “A great discovery! Zhang Ruochen, a great discovery! Come out quickly!”
Zhang Ruochen flew out of the scroll world and immediately heard the old yellow ox again. “Look, quick, look over there, a star! Haha! We’ve finally escaped. We’ve finally left the Dark Triangle Star Region.”
Zhang Ruochen, however, was not as excited, for he knew the rules of heaven and earth had not changed. They were still within the Dark Triangle Star Region.
Yet far away in the void, a tiny dark speck had indeed appeared.
Moreover, the belts of spiritual qi had grown denser.
Kong Lanyou emerged from the scroll world and looked towards the distant dark speck. “Perhaps we have found the Sword Realm.”
“Let’s go and see.”
Zhang Ruochen released his divine qi, enveloping Kong Lanyou and the old yellow ox. He stepped out with divine steps, and in less than a quarter of an hour crossed the vast void to arrive above a planet.
The planet had a diameter of only just over two thousand miles. Miraculously, it teemed with vigorous life force.
Not only was there heavenly spiritual qi, there was also heavenly saint qi.
Saint qi belts had appeared.
What delighted Zhang Ruochen even more was that from this position looking forward, the dark void was filled with planets, large and small, not far apart.
Kong Lanyou said, “There is the aura of a Saint King cultivator on this planet.”
“It seems we truly have found the Sword Realm. Haha!”
The old yellow ox could wait no longer. It charged through the atmosphere like a world-shaking demon, suppressing the Saint King Luo Sha cultivator and pinning him beneath one hoof.
“This king is a cultivator under the Eternal Divine Hall. Even if Your Excellency is a Great Sage, if you dare act recklessly, death is certain.” The Luo Sha Saint King roared.
A flock of beautiful Luo Sha women who had been gathering petals in a sea of pear blossoms flew over gracefully, surrounding the demonic-qi-shrouded old yellow ox.
“The divine thoughts of Eternal Heaven God pervade the world. He must already have sensed what is happening here. If you do not release King Xuan E, you will surely suffer divine punishment. Eternal and indestructible, life equal to heaven.” One Saint-realm Luo Sha woman declared.
“Eternal and indestructible, life equal to heaven.”
…
Zhang Ruochen and Kong Lanyou descended to the ground.
Seeing the boundless sea of pear blossoms, Zhang Ruochen’s gaze stilled briefly. “The legendary Anluoyue pear blossoms. There are so many here.”
Kong Lanyou said, “These pear trees carry powerful fluctuations of time. Was it the power of time that nurtured them?”
Zhang Ruochen replied, “The flowers outside absorb the power of light. Anluoyue pear blossoms are a rare species of heaven and earth, known as flowers of time. They grow by absorbing time marks. The light they emit is actually a manifestation of time. Time-mark light points burn ceaselessly within their petals.”
Zhang Ruochen looked towards the Luo Sha women holding flower baskets and saw they were all gathering Anluoyue pear blossom petals. Some guesses formed in his mind.
“Hua!”
Zhang Ruochen released his divine might, instantly forcing all the Luo Sha women to their knees.
He said, “Answer this god’s questions and your lives may be spared today. What is this place?”
The Saint-realm Luo Sha woman’s gaze remained resolute. “Hmph. A god is nothing to fear. Not long ago, Eternal Heaven God suppressed two gods who trespassed here.”
“Bang!”
The old yellow ox, its temper flaring, stomped the Luo Sha Saint King’s body to pulp, holy blood spilling across the ground.
Many Luo Sha women trembled in fear.
“I will speak. This is the outer starry sky of the Lost Paradise. We came to gather petals of the flowers of time to brew time divine wine for Eternal Heaven God. This king knows that the two gods must be lost ones who entered the Dark Triangle Star Region. In truth, this king’s ancestor was also a lost one.” The Luo Sha Saint King said.
