Chapter 25: Sweet Dew Terrace and the Hundred Herbs Garden
Miss Mo Yu’s eyelashes were very long. Because of the earlier light rain, tiny droplets of water clung to their tips, making her look quite beautiful. Unfortunately, upon hearing Her Holiness the Empress’s words, her eyelashes fluttered, and those raindrops fell, plunging into the darkness before Sweet Dew Terrace like an abyss.
Sweet Dew Terrace stood directly in front of the imperial palace, a hundred zhang high, forged entirely from pure copper—a magnificent sight. Thousands of night pearls were embedded in it, visible from dozens of li away, illuminating the area. But tonight, those night pearls emitted no radiance at all.
Mo Yu looked toward the edge of Sweet Dew Terrace. The black sheep stood there in the starlight, lifting its head to gaze at some point in the night sky. She turned back to look directly ahead at Sweet Dew Terrace, confirming that Her Holiness the Empress was also staring at that same spot in the sky. A flicker of doubt crossed her mind.
“Your Holiness, what are you looking at?” she asked.
Miss Mo Yu commanded immense prestige throughout the Great Zhou and even the entire continent—due to her family background and her unfathomable strength. But the root cause was her relationship with Her Holiness the Empress. There were fewer and fewer people in this world who could speak so casually with the Empress.
Starlight scattered across Sweet Dew Terrace, revealing only the silhouette of that woman’s back.
Just a simple back view, yet it seemed to evoke a myriad of worlds.
Because she was the first female emperor in the world in tens of thousands of years. She was the master of the Great Zhou.
“Someone has lit a star.”
The Empress did not turn around, speaking calmly.
Miss Mo Yu fell silent. Every night, cultivators lit their destiny stars, but she knew that even Her Holiness the Empress rarely saw such a thing. Yet tonight, the Empress had seen it and had been watching it quietly for so long. What did that mean?
“That star is very far from us.”
Hearing the Empress’s next words, Mo Yu thought she understood.
After a moment’s thought, she said, “Even if it’s far… that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a true genius.”
The Empress said nothing.
Mo Yu, like a little girl whose opinion was dismissed by an elder, let out two displeased snorts and said, “That one from the Qiu Shan family—at four years old, his destiny star was the Dragon Soaring Star, which could rank in the top ten within a century. But that very night, a disciple from a minor sect in Bai Li Creek began marrow cleansing, and his destiny star was even farther than the Dragon Soaring Star. Yet could he compare to that one from the Qiu Shan family? Marrow cleansing ultimately depends on the strength of the meridians in the body. How could an ordinary person match the bloodline of a true dragon?”
This was a compelling example. The Qiu Shan Jun had been the top of the Azure Cloud List before the age of eighteen, a universally recognized genius. Meanwhile, that disciple from the minor sect in Bai Li Creek had long faded into obscurity. Without someone as knowledgeable as Mo Yu, who would even remember that person?
The Empress said, “The one who lit a destiny star tonight possesses a spiritual sense so strong and a consciousness so tranquil that it’s extremely rare. I suspect it’s an old scholar who has studied for a hundred years, suddenly comprehending the ultimate principles of heaven and earth, thus achieving this fortune—much like Wang Zhi Ce back in the day. Accumulated thickness yields brilliance; naturally, it’s extraordinary.”
Mo Yu said, “When Master Zhi Ce gathered stars in a single night back then, the entire capital felt it… How is tonight the same? Moreover, there was no projection of the star on the ground, indicating it’s not a matter of innate bloodline. Even if it’s strong, it’s likely limited.”
The Empress did not turn around, but one could sense her smiling. “Child, what do you know of cultivation?”
Mo Yu, young as she was, had already reached the Star Gathering realm—a great powerhouse. Both the Zhou dynasty and the southern cultivation sects regarded her as an anomaly, and even His Holiness the Pope had praised her often. Yet in the Empress’s eyes, she was still just a child who didn’t understand cultivation.
How many people in the entire continent were qualified to judge her like that?
The Empress was naturally one of them.
So Mo Yu wasn’t angry. She just stuck out her tongue at the Empress’s back.
She was no longer the little girl of years past, but she could still be endearing, because she was facing the Empress.
The Empress knew she was making faces behind her back and smiled without a word.
Mo Yu stepped forward, standing beside her, and gazed at the stars in the night sky. After watching quietly for a while, she suddenly asked, “Your Holiness… do destiny stars truly represent each of our fates? Can we see our future fates?”
The Empress said, “Besides fate, there might be another explanation.”
Mo Yu asked curiously, “What explanation?”
The Empress stared into the depths of the night sky, silent for a long time.
There was a distant star there, which had shone brightly for a moment, then could no longer be seen.
The Empress said, “It could also be… a nemesis in fate.”
…
…
Chen Changsheng had lit his destiny star.
Only a very few people across the entire continent had happened to witness that moment’s scene.
Because of that invisible crystal barrier, those people’s judgment of the distance between that star and the ground was skewed. But even so, the distance between his destiny star and the ground was enough to rank among the foremost in human history.
In the northern demon clan’s Snow Old City, the southern Holy Maiden Peak, the Li Mountain where the Eternal Life Sect was located, and the Wang Chuan deep in the demon domain—some might have seen it, some might not. If they did, they would inevitably take it very seriously, trying to discover who had lit that star.
None of that mattered. There were billions of stars in the night sky, and the connection between them and billions of humans was always an untouchable realm. That thread could never be seen by anyone. As long as Chen Changsheng didn’t speak, no one could ever know.
But there would always be accidents, or exceptions.
Some people’s cultivation realms were not high. Logically, they couldn’t even see the image of that star brightening in the night sky, let alone follow that thread to find Chen Changsheng. But by chance, when Chen Changsheng lit his destiny star, that person happened to be looking at the night sky, just like Her Holiness the Empress. And even more coincidentally, she was cultivating at the time, her spiritual sense spreading into the abandoned garden one wall away.
The root cause was that she had an innate, close connection with starlight, allowing her to intuitively sense many things.
This was a talent—more precisely, it was her racial talent.
On the other side of the broken wall of the National Academy was the Hundred Herbs Garden.
She had been in the Hundred Herbs Garden that night.
She clearly felt how tranquil and resilient the spiritual sense that lit the destiny star was.
She was very curious about who owned that spiritual sense.
She wanted to find him and then ask him some questions. For that, she wouldn’t mind giving him some rare treasures seldom seen in the world.
Because her name was Luo Luo, and she was very generous.