Chapter 570: A Visitor in the Mountains
Chen Changsheng sprinted wildly, his boots and the mountain path shattering together as he kicked up dust and smoke. In just a few moments, he had already reached the mountainside.
He didn’t know how much farther it was to the Celestial Pool at the peak of Cold Mountain. He only knew he had to hurry, to run as far as possible.
But in the next instant, he stopped, because he sensed something was wrong.
He felt the stone bead growing hot.
Suddenly, thunder rumbled among the peaks—was that the sound of hundreds of stones being forcibly dragged, breaking through the air?
Then came the sound of a cliff collapsing.
The noise grew closer, and the stone bead transformed from the Heavenly Book Stele grew hotter, even scalding.
Abruptly, all sounds vanished.
An object came into—more accurately, burst into—his field of vision.
It was a seal, carved from some unknown stone, showing nothing unusual.
The stone seal swayed gently in the wind.
The seal was tied to someone’s waist.
That middle-aged scholar.
Only then did Chen Changsheng see the hundreds of Heavenly Stones that had followed the middle-aged scholar.
They filled the sky and covered the earth, their momentum extraordinary. Though they were extraordinary objects meant to limit his speed and trap him, they seemed, like that seal, to have become his ornaments.
This was a cliff face, with shallow pits chiseled out in some unknown year to serve as a path, the pits filled with moss.
Chen Changsheng was below the cliff; the middle-aged scholar was above, separated by only a few dozen zhang.
“You humans love doing things that trap yourselves,” the middle-aged scholar said calmly, looking at him. “I don’t know if the Heavenly Stone Formation sealing the mountain is a trap, but I do know it will seal you to death in this mountain.”
Chen Changsheng didn’t reply, because it was pointless.
Nor did despair arise in his heart—again, because it was pointless.
His divine sense fell upon the black stone bead, preparing to enter the Garden of Zhou for refuge.
He didn’t know if the middle-aged scholar had the power to directly break through the spatial barrier of the Garden of Zhou—if his and Xu Yourong’s earlier deduction was correct, this man had once infiltrated the Garden of Zhou, so entering it in his presence wasn’t safe. But with a sheer cliff at his back, he was in a dead end; he had to try.
What shocked him—or rather, what he expected—was that he couldn’t enter the Garden of Zhou through the black stone.
No change occurred. He was still before the sheer cliff of Cold Mountain.
Whether because the Cold Mountain Heavenly Stone Formation sealed all space, or because the middle-aged scholar was powerful enough to influence the laws of space at close range, he couldn’t enter the Garden of Zhou. He had lost his last resort.
But still, he didn’t despair.
He raised the Stainless Sword, gripped the Concealed Sheath, and looked at the middle-aged scholar, his expression calm.
This was an enemy he could never defeat—but so what?
A glint of approval appeared in the middle-aged scholar’s eyes. “You should know my purpose,” he said.
Chen Changsheng nodded.
“I will eat you slowly, with a heart that cherishes talent,” the middle-aged scholar said.
Chen Changsheng replied, “I know the final form of the Mountain-Departing Sword Technique. I also know how to shatter jade and stone together—Senior Su Li taught me a Burning Sword technique. I can burn myself to ashes.”
The middle-aged scholar smiled. “Threatening me with death? Though fresh prey tastes better, I don’t mind showing some mercy and killing you first.”
Chen Changsheng said, “But you haven’t killed me yet.”
Yes, if the middle-aged scholar had truly been determined to kill him, he would have died long ago, regardless of his yellow paper umbrella, Thousand-Mile Button, or that letter.
The middle-aged scholar’s smile faded, and his face turned expressionless. “Before me, even dying isn’t that easy.”
“I want to try.”
In Xunyang City, when Wang Po faced Zhu Luo, he had said those four words—he wanted to try if he could stab Zhu Luo once. Today on Cold Mountain, Chen Changsheng also spoke those four words. He wanted to try if he could burn himself to ashes before the other could stop him.
Ten thousand swords hummed faintly in their sheaths, ready for a final charge. The envelope was clenched in his hand, ready to release its final sword.
True essence flowed painfully through his broken meridians. A storm rose in his sea of divine sense, ready for the final burn.
When he made this decision, he was truly calm.
Of course, there was still some reluctance.
There were many things he hadn’t finished.
…
…
Time passed slowly. The ten thousand swords still hadn’t left their sheaths. He hadn’t burned. He was still alive.
Not because the middle-aged scholar had controlled his body, but because two people had appeared before the sheer cliff.
Two men stepped out from the green vines on the cliff edge.
One had white hair and a tense expression, especially when he looked at the middle-aged scholar—his eyes were full of fear. The other bore a weathered look, but his age was hard to tell. He wore ordinary clothes, his demeanor calm, like a visitor seeking scenic spots.
But he was certainly no ordinary man.
Because when he appeared on the scene, the middle-aged scholar stopped looking at Chen Changsheng and turned to him.
Earlier, on the mountain path by the stream, neither Liu Qing, Xiao De, nor the Heavenly Machine Elder’s Cold Mountain Heavenly Stone Formation could truly divert the middle-aged scholar’s gaze from Chen Changsheng. Because his purpose in leaving the Snow Old City after a thousand years was Chen Changsheng.
To the middle-aged scholar, no one was more important than Chen Changsheng.
Yet now, he looked at that visitor-like man with such intensity.
The landscapes on his face suddenly blurred, then vanished completely, revealing his true form.
Was this respect or vigilance? Who in the world deserved his respect? Required his vigilance? The Heavenly Sea? The Pope? Or the White Emperor?
No. That visitor-like man was clearly not one of the three saints.
But to the middle-aged scholar, he was far more worthy of respect and vigilance than those three saints.
A faint, cold wind howled among the cliffs. The night sky, torn by thousands of Heavenly Stones, gradually cracked open, still dim, even appearing somewhat tragic.
For a long time, no one spoke. The atmosphere among the cliffs was eerily strange.
The middle-aged scholar and that visitor-like man stared at each other in silence. Gradually, wind and thunder gathered at the intersection of their gazes, then slowly faded, like drifting clouds.
Chen Changsheng knew the situation had finally taken a turn, all because of that visitor-like man. But who was he?
He couldn’t imagine who else in the world, besides Her Holiness the Empress, His Holiness the Pope, and the White Emperor, could make the middle-aged scholar so serious that he temporarily let him go.
No one knew how much time passed before the middle-aged scholar finally spoke. His voice was filled with immense emotion, even sorrow: “So you really aren’t dead.”
The man smiled slightly. “Since His Majesty isn’t dead, how could I die?”
The middle-aged scholar looked at him with a hint of pity. “But in the end, he still died.”