# 1043
Chapter 1043: Peach of Immortality
Creak—!
The cyan-gray door was pushed open. Lin Qiye stepped across the threshold and stood at the entrance of the room.
The guest room in the Jade Pool was exactly as the green-robed maid had described—simple in decor. But upon closer inspection, the placement of every item seemed to hide subtle intricacies, a return to simplicity amidst profound meaning.
Lin Qiye knew nothing of feng shui, nor of the Eight Trigrams or fate divination, yet gazing at this guest room, he felt an inexplicable sense of mystery.
So this is what an immortal residence looks like...
Lin Qiye sighed in admiration and walked inside, his fingertips brushing across the tables and chairs—all of them solid to the touch.
Everything here was real, not a temporal echo.
In other words, was this room he stood in also a real guest room in the Kunlun Ruins?
The room was real, the furnishings inside were real—the only question was whether they truly appeared as pristine and neat as Lin Qiye's naked eye suggested.
After circling the room, Lin Qiye stepped back outside and stood in the spacious courtyard before the door, gazing down at the ethereal mountain scenery around him.
As Lin Qiye admired the view, his heart churned with mixed emotions.
The scenery was beautiful, the lodgings were comfortable, but which parts were truly real remained uncertain.
This place held reality within illusion, and illusion within reality—so much so that Lin Qiye was growing confused about what was genuine and what was fabricated...
On an adjacent mountain peak, a rainbow streaked across the sky and transformed into a figure cloaked in silver robes, landing behind Lin Qiye.
Yang Jian glanced at the building behind Lin Qiye and asked:
"Can your room be inhabited?"
"Yes." Lin Qiye nodded. "Everything inside is real."
Upon hearing this, Yang Jian's expression relaxed.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I was worried earlier that since everything at the Peach of Immortality Banquet was illusory, whether the mountains within the Jade Pool might also exist only as temporal echoes, while their true forms had already been destroyed... It seems I was overthinking. The Jade Pool is intact."
Lin Qiye nodded thoughtfully.
If it were merely a temporal echo without physical substance, Lin Qiye wouldn't have been able to touch anything. For both him and Yang Jian to perceive it, it had to be an object that existed simultaneously in both the real world and the temporal echo, without any discrepancy.
"However, this can't be completely certain—we haven't visited the rest of the Jade Pool..." Yang Jian quickly added.
"More than that, I'm puzzled by something else." Lin Qiye pondered. "Why were all the Great Xia Gods at the venue temporal echoes, yet the maids at the entrance had physical forms?"
Yang Jian raised an eyebrow and glanced at him.
"Isn't that obvious?"
"What?"
Yang Jian opened his mouth, about to say something, when another streak of rainbow light descended from the sky, transforming into a red-robed maid who stood before Lin Qiye.
The maid carried a wooden box in her hands and respectfully bowed to Lin Qiye:
"This is the reward prepared for you by Her Highness."
Lin Qiye was startled. He stepped forward and took the wooden box—it was heavy in his hands, not an illusion.
After handing over the box, the maid bowed once more, then transformed into a streak of rainbow light and vanished into the horizon.
Lin Qiye opened the wooden box. A rich, exotic fragrance immediately assaulted his senses. A translucent peach of immortality lay quietly in the center of the box, radiating an irresistible allure.
Peach of Immortality?!
Lin Qiye's heart lurched.
He reached out and gently touched the surface of the peach.
There was sensation!
This was a real Peach of Immortality!
A possibility flashed through Lin Qiye's mind. He猛地抬起头， looked up sharply at Yang Jian and said in astonishment:
"The Queen Mother of the West is real?!"
"I said it long ago—some beings exceed what the Kunlun Mirror can record." Yang Jian spoke unhurriedly. "Her Highness is one of those beings..."
"She's that powerful?"
Lin Qiye recalled the majestic, dignified beautiful woman seated on the main throne, and spoke in amazement.
"The Queen Mother of the West and the Jade Emperor are both beings of Infinity approaching Supreme God, second only to the Three Purities." Yang Jian spoke calmly. "Otherwise, whose power do you think sustains such a vast temporal echo?"
The astonishment in Lin Qiye's eyes grew deeper.
He had always assumed it was the Kunlun Mirror's main body sustaining this temporal echo. Now that he thought about it, simulating and凝聚ing the illusions of hundreds of Great Xia Gods attending the Peach of Immortality Banquet... How could a single divine artifact accomplish that alone?
Only the Queen Mother of the West, second only to the Three Purities, possessed such power.
"Those maids..."
"The Queen Mother of the West's personal maids are naturally real. This vast Jade Pool couldn't possibly be managed by the Queen Mother alone."
Only then did Lin Qiye suddenly understand.
"So even if I hadn't acted back then, that foreign god's agent couldn't have disrupted the Peach of Immortality Banquet?"
"Some things are different when you do them versus when Her Highness does them personally." Yang Jian gave him a meaningful look.
The one who had invaded the Peach of Immortality Banquet venue was merely a mortal from a Western divine kingdom. If the Queen Mother of the West—existence second only to the Three Purities—had personally intervened, it would have been far beneath her dignity.
As for the others who had volunteered to help the Queen Mother of the West, they were all temporal echoes she herself had conjured. Of course they couldn't deal with Andre. At that moment, Lin Qiye—a fellow mortal with a physical form—appearing was extremely timely.
This was why Yang Jian hadn't stopped Lin Qiye from going to face Andre earlier; instead, he had been somewhat expectant.
Lin Qiye performing well before the Queen Mother of the West was a tremendous stroke of fortune for him.
Understanding this, Lin Qiye looked down at the peach in his arms, and comprehension dawned in his heart.
"I don't know how much time has passed since you left until this Peach of Immortality Banquet, but I imagine it can't be more than a thousand years... The time is too short; the peaches haven't fully matured yet. For Her Highness to grant you one that ripens once every three thousand years is already quite generous."
Yang Jian examined the peach in Lin Qiye's hand and nodded.
The peach in Lin Qiye's hand was almost the same size as the illusory peach that had been displayed before him in the lower immortal district. Among peaches that ripen once every three thousand years, this was already top-tier.
A gleam of joy flashed in Lin Qiye's eyes.
The peach he hadn't eaten at the Peach of Immortality Banquet had returned to him in this form—something he never could have anticipated.
"This peach was just removed from its seal; the spiritual energy hasn't yet escaped. Consuming it now will yield the best effect."
Yang Jian reminded him.
Lin Qiye acknowledged with a sound and directly took the peach from the wooden box, brought it to his lips, and用力咬下一口.