# Chapter 1741: A String Connecting the Past
When the radiance erupting from Taiyi's coffin finally dissipated, the starry sky was filled with severed root tendrils everywhere, writhing like severed giant serpents.
The Longevity Hall Master was difficult to kill. Even so, his root tendrils continued to squirm, trying to gather together.
However, when two root tendrils touched, they immediately triggered the Dao wounds left by the Burial Dao Divine Coffin. The residual power of the Burial Dao Divine Coffin's divine ability erupted, riddling the root tendrils with holes.
Qin Mu saw this and breathed a sigh of relief.
As he relaxed, excruciating pain coursed through his entire body. After his battle with the Chu Ge Hall Master, he had been in a wounded state. The correct decision should have been to rest for a period, recover to his peak condition, and then deal with the Longevity Hall Master.
But time was urgent. If the Longevity Hall Master managed to rendezvous with the Joy Hall Master, he would be no match for these two Hall Masters together.
Moreover, neither Hall Master had fully descended yet. Once they fully descended and then entrusted themselves to the void, whether Qin Mu could defeat them one-on-one was still unknown.
Thus, he had no choice but to fight while wounded. Fortunately, he had frightened off the Joy Hall Master along the way. If the Joy Hall Master had come to join forces with the Longevity Hall Master, this battle would have ended in utter defeat.
"Taiyi definitely won't hate me, right?"
Qin Mu stabilized his injuries. The Dao wounds left by the Longevity Hall Master were not troublesome, but the Dao wounds inflicted by the Burial Dao Divine Coffin were much more troublesome (jishou) and difficult to heal in a short time.
He approached Taiyi's coffin. The fluctuations of the Burial Dao Divine Coffin had subsided. Despite having been through two rounds of disturbance, this divine coffin remained completely unharmed, sturdy and solid—truly an excellent piece of coffin wood.
Qin Mu gently stroked the coffin, then laboriously dragged it toward the Ferry World Golden Ship.
"Taiyi is so strong. A mere Burial Dao Divine Coffin can't do anything to him."
Qin Mu was full of confidence in Taiyi. His voice hoarse, he called out, "Imperial Brother, come out quickly. I'm exhausted."
From somewhere within the Ferry World Golden Ship came Lan Yutian's voice, shouting, "Brother, wait a little longer!"
Qin Mu couldn't drag Taiyi's coffin onto the ship, so he had to stop and rest. After a while, Lan Yutian was still nowhere to be seen.
"Imperial Brother, still not coming out?" he wondered.
"Wait for me a bit longer! I think I'm almost finding my way out!"
Qin Mu waited a while longer until he grew impatient. "Could Lan Yutian be lost again?"
Lan Yutian had an extremely high perception of Dao, a person naturally close to the Dao. But his flaw was a habitual tendency to get lost. In the past, he had gotten lost and ended up in the Western Lands, spending time with Xu Shenghua. After leaving Xu Shenghua, he had gotten lost all the way to the outer reaches of the Great Void, where he had vaguely taken on a group of disciples. Fortunately, he had encountered Qin Mu, who had brought him back.
The Ferry World Golden Ship contained a vast number of golden halls. Qin Mu had once, in order to find the location of the Kai Emperor, performed massive and complex calculations to determine the number of golden halls, arriving at a shocking figure. Qin Fengqing had then used the methods of the Netherworld to transform into billions of avatars and search through all these halls.
If Lan Yutian weren't directionally challenged, he could have figured out a way to find his way out. Unfortunately, he was.
He had used the ship's unique properties to preserve himself and trap the Longevity Hall Master, but he hadn't expected to get himself lost in the process.
"Imperial Brother probably won't find his way out for tens of thousands of years. I can't count on him."
Qin Mu used all his remaining strength to drag Taiyi's coffin onto the ship, then lay on the deck gasping for breath, utterly exhausted. He closed his eyes and slowly drifted into dreams.
Countless tiny Qin Mus burrowed through the wounds on his body, communicating with "Maha maha" and "Gugu gugu," observing the Dao wounds, deducing the divine abilities and Dao principles contained within them.
After a while, a deeper layer of dreams spread out, and many more tiny Qin Mus emerged, holding axes and chisels. Unlike the other Qin Mus, these tiny ones had flesh and blood, clearly formed from Qin Mu's Great Dao and Hongmeng primordial energy.
Each tiny Qin Mu was like the most diligent worker bee or ant, clustering around Qin Mu's wounds, hammering and chiseling, using their own Dao techniques to refine and erase the Dao wounds.
The other tiny Qin Mus curiously observed these new companions, asking, "Maha maha?"
"Gugu gugu?"
Those new companions wore serious expressions, ignoring them, and only when impatient would they reply, "Aba, aba!"
The other tiny Qin Mus widened their eyes, pretending to understand, but in reality understood nothing.
There were also some tiny Qin Mus dressed as pharmacists, either carrying medicine boxes, carrying (beizhe) medicine baskets on their backs, or holding alchemy furnaces, carefully repairing the Dao wounds.
Those tiny Qin Mus would swarm over to ask questions, only to be poisoned by the pharmacist Qin Mus, foaming at the mouth and twitching uncontrollably.
The other Qin Mus pointed at them and laughed heartily, gloating: "Aba!"
When Qin Mu was about to wake from his dream, these tiny Qin Mus hurriedly burrowed back into his brain, disappearing one after another.
Qin Mu stretched his body, feeling refreshed after waking up. The Dao wounds on his body had vanished.
He stood up and inspected Taiyi's coffin again, but saw that Lan Yutian still hadn't emerged from the golden halls.
"Imperial Brother is probably truly lost."
During the time he had been healing in his dreams, the Ferry World Golden Ship had traveled for over ten days, drifting toward the Ancestral Court and drawing very close to it.
Qin Mu frowned slightly. This golden ship moved according to his will, having left the Primordial Realm and approached the Ancestral Court. In his dreams, the dream world was strange and magnificent, and his thoughts were uncontrollable, galloping freely like a wild horse. Thus, the golden ship had chosen his most heartfelt desire.
"I wonder if those root tendrils of the Longevity Hall Master will become a hidden danger."
He felt some unease. He should have stayed, waited until his wounds healed, and completely obliterated all of the Longevity Hall Master's root tendrils to ensure no future trouble.
But the golden ship had already arrived here. Going back now would be too late. Indeed, as the ship's direction indicated, his concern for the Ancestral Court was greater.
"The Longevity Hall Master's root tendrils were severely wounded by the Burial Dao Divine Coffin. Each tendril bears the Dao wounds left by that coffin. Without my insight and knowledge, he can't erase these Dao wounds. The problem shouldn't be too serious."
Qin Mu was still somewhat weak. Twice clashing with Hall Master-level existences had depleted much of his cultivation. Cultivation wasn't something that could be restored just by dreaming.
He rested for a moment, then with a thought, the golden halls on the ship began to disappear one by one. The halls didn't vanish quickly, giving Lan Yutian enough time to run from one hall into another.
After a long while, the Ancestral Court came into view ahead. In the distance, he could see the allied forces of the Eternal Peace Empire and the myriad realms. Only one golden hall remained on the ship.
Lan Yutian cautiously pushed open the hall door, poked his head out to look around, and seeing that the Ferry World Golden Ship was now only about a hundred zhang in length, he breathed a sigh of relief and stepped out.
"Imperial Brother, do you see that?" Qin Mu stood at the bow, pointing toward the distant Ancestral Court. Behind him stood Taiyi's coffin, now upright.
Lan Yutian walked forward, looked at Taiyi's coffin, and saw that Taiyi was once again placed head-down and feet-up on the ship. He quickly lifted the coffin and turned it around.
He walked up beside Qin Mu and looked in the direction his finger indicated. The Ancestral Court was turbulent with wind and clouds, magnificent and vast. The Heavenly Court floated above the center of the Ancestral Court, radiating immense divine might, divine light forming clouds, golden light blazing—far more spectacular than the Heavenly Court of old!
The canopy of the World Tree had grown to the point where it covered the sky like a giant umbrella. Dao radiance cascaded from the canopy like clouds, making the heavens and earth of the Ancestral Court increasingly vast.
Beneath the World Tree's canopy, countless magnificent divine cities floated. Chains of Dao descended from the sky, piercing the earth, connecting mountains and rivers, as if locking these divine cities in place to prevent them from flying beyond the heavens.
In the decades since, the Ancestral Court had changed enormously. Prehistoric powerhouses and Dao-achievers had smuggled themselves here, transforming heaven and earth, bringing a strange beauty to the Ancestral Court—a breathtaking beauty.
"Brother, what do you see?" Lan Yutian looked for a long time but didn't know what Qin Mu was referring to.
The Ancestral Court was too vast, with too many noteworthy places: the World Tree, the sacred grounds of the Ancestral Court, and the five Dao Trees above the Heavenly Court—all eye-catching.
"A string."
The direction Qin Mu pointed was precisely the location of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court. His voice heavy, he said, "A string that traverses time and space from the Sixteenth Epoch. This string comes from the Chaotic Long River of the Sixteenth Epoch, pulled by the Hao Heavenly Venerable, who drew it out from the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court."
The eyesight of his vertical brow was astonishing, capable of penetrating time and space, seeing through chaos, and glimpsing the past.
What he saw was this string extending from a past universe, growing longer as the Hao Heavenly Emperor walked out of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, crossing vast stretches of time—a history of sixty billion years for this universe—arriving at the present, following the Hao Heavenly Venerable toward the Heavenly Court.
This string was almost imperceptible. Only Qin Mu's eyes could see it; no one else could even notice its existence.
"The Hao Heavenly Emperor no longer exists. Only the lackey beneath the gates of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court remains."
Qin Mu exhaled a breath of turbid air and said solemnly, "What the Hao Heavenly Venerable intends to do is to lead this string to the Heavenly Court, subdue the five Dao-achievers there, and bring this force under his control!"
Ahead of the golden ship, Yue Heavenly Venerable, You Heavenly Venerable, and the others had already stabilized the army. They hadn't launched an offensive against the Ancestral Court but had arrayed themselves outside it. These days, they had been building spiritual energy transfer bridges outside, constructing large-scale transfer bridges to facilitate communication with the Eternal Peace Empire.
—The situation in the Ancestral Court was still unclear. Attacking now would only invite trouble.
As the golden ship approached, Jiang Baigui, Yue Heavenly Venerable, You Heavenly Venerable, Xu Shenghua, Lang Wan, Long Qilin, the Black Tortoise and Vermilion Bird Emperors, and others all came to greet him. Qin Mu put away Taiyi's coffin and stepped off the golden ship, where someone immediately came forward to dock it.
"Mu Heavenly Venerable, the Ancestral Court has fallen into the hands of the prehistoric powerhouses. The remnants of the Hao Heavenly Emperor's army have fled into the Ancestral Court. With our strength, we are no match for either side."
Lang Wan's beautiful eyes glanced around as she asked, "Does the Heavenly Venerable have any plans?"
Qin Mu's gaze fell upon her, and his mind wavered slightly. He felt that Lang Wan seemed different today, no longer as cold and distant as before. But what exactly had changed, he couldn't quite pinpoint.
"Naturally, I have plans."
Qin Mu laughed heartily. "I will go to the Heavenly Court to pay a visit to the five Dao-achievers there, and incidentally meet the Hao Heavenly Venerable, the Joy Hall Master, and the string behind him!"
Lang Wan smiled. "I'll go with you."
Not far away, the Eternal Peace Emperor looked somewhat surprised, stroked his beard, and turned to Jiang Baigui, saying, "National Teacher, there's something fishy here. I think this creator wants to poach from my Ling family."
Jiang Baigui kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, his mind calm, and replied, "Your Majesty is overthinking things."
The Eternal Peace Emperor remained skeptical.
—Wishing our alliance leader, Zi Mu, a happy birthday!