Chapter 70: Entering the Zhou Garden Again
That fluctuation was very faint, but extremely clear—it was definitely a fluctuation of true essence!
What did this mean? It meant that one of Zhe Xiu's meridians had been reconnected. Although it couldn't be said to be fully repaired yet, at least true essence could slowly flow through it. And as long as true essence began to flow, the meridian's self-repair process would accelerate countless times over. Where would it need three years? Perhaps not even thirty days would be required before that meridian was restored to its original state!
"How is this possible?" Chen Changsheng thought in astonishment, looking at Zhe Xiu.
Their eyes met, and he knew that Zhe Xiu himself had already sensed the recovery of his meridians. It had nothing to do with treatment or spiritual medicines. The time was countless times shorter than the estimated duration. Then it could only be said that Zhe Xiu had done this himself. The question was, how had he done it?
"Pain," Zhe Xiu said, looking into his eyes. "It can stimulate vitality. The greater the pain, the more vitality it can draw out—as long as you can endure that pain while remaining conscious."
Chen Changsheng was deeply shocked. For a long time, he could not speak.
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In the dead of night, the lights in the National Academy gradually went out, and the starlight in the detached garden grew brighter. Chen Changsheng stood by the window, gazing at the silver lake in silence. Normally, at this hour, he would have already gone to sleep, but not tonight. The fierce will that Zhe Xiu had displayed made him vaguely understand something.
He sat cross-legged by the window, began to meditate, and then entered the sword sheath. Unlike before, this time he did not send just a wisp of his divine sense into the sheath; instead, he sent all of his divine sense into it. He knew this was very dangerous—he would endure great pain, and if his divine sense were shattered by the phantom of that black stone tablet, he would very likely be severely injured.
But he no longer wanted to wait. He had to enter the Zhou Garden and take a look.
The sword sheath was called Concealed Edge. Within it, countless sharp sword intents converged, forming a perilous ocean. In the past, when a single wisp of his divine sense crossed this ocean of swords, it would stir up violent storms and towering waves. Now that he had sent all of his divine sense in, the ocean of sword intents sensed it and immediately erupted into a furious roar.
It was painful, truly painful. His divine sense continuously crashed through mountain-like waves or sank into the icy depths. He didn't know how much time had passed before he finally succeeded in reaching the other shore of the sword ocean once more, seeing the phantom of the black stone tablet.
This seemed simple, but in reality, it was extremely perilous. If his divine sense hadn't just been cleansed by that drop of tea tonight, making it more agile and full of vitality than before, it would likely have been devoured by this ocean halfway through.
Even so, several times along the way, he nearly gave up due to the agony. But just before he was about to abandon the attempt, he thought of Zhe Xiu, thought of the scene at the top of the Zhou Mausoleum where he had held up the Umbrella of Ten Thousand Swords as the sky fell, and gritted his teeth to push through.
Tonight, what reached the other shore of the sword ocean was all of his divine sense.
Thus, it could be understood that he had arrived at the other shore of the sword ocean, standing before that black stone tablet.
When his gaze fell upon the phantom of the black stone tablet, his divine sense followed.
Last time, his divine sense had already been able to penetrate deep into the phantom of the black stone tablet, but it couldn't pass through, so he had only vaguely seen some scenes beyond. This time was the same. He saw the somewhat dim cliffs of Muyu, saw the ruins of Panshan Shrine, saw those dried-up small lakes that looked like scars, and also saw that grassland.
The grassland seemed lifeless. The green reeds and white frost grass looked like large patches of discoloration, cut apart by ravines formed by earth fissures.
Just as he thought the demonic beasts had all fled the grassland to some unknown place, he suddenly noticed a large black mass in the northwest. With a slight shift of his mind, he arrived in the sky above that spot.
On the grassland, at least tens of thousands of demonic beasts were slowly advancing toward a distant mausoleum.
Their heads were lowered, their breaths were ragged, drool dripped from the corners of their mouths, and the wounds on their bodies gave off a rotting stench. They looked as if they could die at any moment.
Suddenly, the black tide of beasts came to a halt. A mountain-like figure slowly stood up—it was the enormous Inverted Mountain Tusker—and looked up at the sky.
Tens of thousands of demonic beasts followed its gaze toward the sky, all feeling as if something was watching them from up there, yet they saw nothing.
After an unknown amount of time, despair filled the eyes of the demonic beasts, and they let out painful, low whimpers. If a deity truly looked down upon them from the sky, why wouldn't it come to save them? How could it bear to watch them walk into a dead end?
The demonic beasts did not go mad from despair, because those that had gone mad had already killed each other in the past days. The ones that remained were utterly exhausted, having given up all hope of survival. They only wanted to return to the place where their generations had lived and then fall into a long slumber alongside the master of the mausoleum.
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Chen Changsheng withdrew his gaze and looked at the surface of the black stone tablet.
The phantom of the black stone tablet was no different from the black stone tablet itself, except that it had no physical form—it was a complete, true projection.
He stared at the intricate, incomprehensible lines on the tablet's surface, pondering how to get through.
If these lines fell into the eyes of an ordinary person, they would be a celestial script—impossible to understand, let alone analyze for any patterns. Because this black stone tablet was, in fact, a Celestial Script Stele.
Chen Changsheng had seen many Celestial Script Steles and was very familiar with the lines on their surfaces. He knew how he should look at them.
His gaze moved along the lines, following them, and he felt as if he had returned to the thatched hut before the steles in the Celestial Script Mausoleum, sitting beneath a tree for countless days and nights.
Those lines were the trajectories of the stars' movements, the source or manifestation of all changes in fate. He felt as if he had returned to the wilderness north of Tianliang County, sitting by a stream, looking up at the starry sky.
That was the first day after Su Li had passed the Wisdom Sword to him.
He knew very well that his computational and deductive abilities were insufficient to master the Wisdom Sword. So he used a different method.
He used the method of deciphering Celestial Script Steles to wield the Wisdom Sword. Even Su Li probably couldn't have imagined that he could do such a thing.
Now, he was going to reverse all of this. He would use the Wisdom Sword to unlock the Celestial Script Stele—not to understand it as he had when contemplating the steles in the Celestial Script Mausoleum, but to break it.
He had to find a passage within the lines on the surface of the black stone tablet, to find the divine kingdom through the trajectories of the stars, to see the truth within the ethereal threads of fate, and then break through with his sword.
After an unknown amount of time, he closed his eyes.
After another unknown amount of time, he opened his eyes and thrust his sword at the surface of the black stone tablet.
His divine sense was inside the sword sheath at this moment, while his body was outside it.
His sword was within the sheath, yet not inside the sheath.
But when he struck, the Stainless Sword responded to his will and appeared in his hand.
The Stainless Sword cut through the air and landed on the black stone tablet. It was aimed at the intersection of several lines, yet for some reason, when the sword tip touched the tablet, it struck an empty space.
With a soft crack, like a bubble on a pond being popped by a mischievous little frog.
With a roar, the ocean of sword intents behind him surged into a towering wave.
The surface of the black stone tablet before him rapidly faded, then turned into a pure white.
That was light.
That was also the sky.
He withdrew his gaze from the sky, looked down at the surrounding grassland, and saw the three mountain ranges in the distance, as well as the withered grass in the wilderness.
A cold wind howled, brushing against his sleeves.
This was the Zhou Garden.
He stood at the place closest to the sky in the Zhou Garden, and also the farthest from the ground.
He was standing on top of the Zhou Mausoleum.
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The morning at the National Academy was no longer as quiet as before. The detached garden was slightly better—Zhe Xiu lay in bed recovering, and although Tang Thirty-Six had become much more diligent than before, there was no way he would get up at the fifth hour. Xuan Yuan Po came around from the kitchen on the other side of the lake, arrived at the small building, and shouted toward a certain window upstairs: "Chen Changsheng, come down and eat."
Earlier, by the lake, he had clearly seen Chen Changsheng at the window, so he knew it was already the fifth hour. The National Academy never needed timekeeping tools—Chen Changsheng was the time.
No one answered from that window.
Xuan Yuan Po waved the fat blue lobster in his hand and shouted: "This with extra chili oil goes great with steamed buns! I specially saved one for you. Hurry up and come down, or Tang Thirty-Six will hear and come snatch it from us."
Still no answer.
Xuan Yuan Po felt puzzled. He thumped up the stairs, pushed open Chen Changsheng's door, and said: "Brushing your teeth can't take this long."
No one answered, because there was no one in the room. The window was open, and the morning breeze blew in, lifting a corner of the bedsheet.
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Chen Changsheng looked at the Stainless Sword in his right hand and confirmed that the sword was real.
Then he confirmed that he himself was real.
This meant that he had truly entered the Zhou Garden, or in other words, he had rediscovered the Zhou Garden.
The phantom of that black stone tablet, it now seemed, should be the path to the Zhou Garden, while the black stone tablet itself should be the key to the Zhou Garden.
He remembered very clearly that when he left the Zhou Garden, the sky was collapsing and falling.
Among the small worlds discovered by humans, the Zhou Garden was the most stable and the largest. But after all, it was a fragment of space, naturally not as solid as the original world. So both he and Zhu Luo and Mei Lisha outside Hanqiu City had assumed that the Zhou Garden must have been destroyed. Who could have imagined that the Zhou Garden still existed, that it had reestablished its rules, and had barely but truly stabilized again?
...Only, great changes had already taken place.
Not much time had passed since he left the Zhou Garden—certainly less than half a year—but the Zhou Garden had become very different.
This world had become much more desolate and ruined. Perhaps due to that catastrophic upheaval, the ground was covered with cracks, the water in the grassy sea had become very murky, the distant cliffs showed signs of collapse everywhere, mountain springs had dried up, many small lakes had also dried up. The earth looked scarred and ravaged. The green forests were covered in dust, looking very bleak.
In the grassy sea, the chirping of insects could no longer be heard. The roots of the grass were nearly dead, and naturally, no schools of fish could be seen. As far as the eye could see, only a few fish floated belly-up, weakly blowing bubbles.
Even the sun in the sky—or rather, the halo of light—had grown dim.
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