Chapter 64: A Tourist in the Mountains
Chen Changsheng sprinted all the way, his boots and the mountain path shattering together, kicking up dust and smoke as he fled. 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 summit of Cold Mountain; he only knew he should hurry, running as far as possible.
But in the next instant, he stopped in his tracks, because he sensed something was wrong.
He felt the stone bead growing hot.
Suddenly, thunder rumbled through the mountain range—was that the sound of hundreds of stones being forcibly dragged along, breaking through the air?
Then came the sound of a cliff collapsing.
The noise drew closer and closer, and the stone bead, once a Heavenly Book Stele, grew hotter and hotter, even becoming scalding.
Then, all sounds vanished without a trace.
An object came into—or rather, burst into—his field of vision.
It was a seal, carved from some unknown stone material, showing nothing unusual at first glance.
The stone seal swayed gently in the wind.
The seal was tied to someone’s waist.
That someone was the 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, an imposing spectacle. Though they were extraordinary objects meant to slow his speed and trap him, they seemed to have become mere ornaments, just like that seal.
This was a cliff face, with shallow pits chiseled out in some unknown year to serve as a makeshift path, the pits thick with moss.
Chen Changsheng stood below the cliff, the middle-aged scholar above, separated by no more than a few hundred feet.
“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 Grand Formation sealing the mountain is a scheme, but I do know it will seal you to death in this mountain.”
Chen Changsheng didn’t respond, 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 to take shelter.
He didn’t know if the middle-aged scholar had the power to directly break through the spatial barriers of the Garden of Zhou—if his earlier deduction with Xu Yourong was correct, this person had once infiltrated the Garden of Zhou, so entering it in his presence wouldn’t be safe. But behind him was a sheer cliff; he was in a dead end, so he had to try.
What shocked him—or rather, what he had 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 Grand Formation sealed all space, or because the middle-aged scholar was powerful enough to influence the laws of space at such close range, he didn’t know.
In any case, he couldn’t enter the Garden of Zhou, losing his last resort.
But still, he didn’t despair.
He raised the Stainless Sword, gripping the Hidden Edge Sheath, and looked at the middle-aged scholar, his expression very calm.
This was an enemy he could never defeat, but so what?
A look of approval appeared in the middle-aged scholar’s eyes. “You should know my purpose,” he said.
Chen Changsheng nodded.
The middle-aged scholar said, “I will eat you slowly, with a heart that cherishes talent.”
Chen Changsheng said, “I know the last form of the Mountain-Departing Sword Art, and I also know how to destroy jade and stone together. Senior Su Li once taught me a Burning Sword technique; I can burn myself to ashes.”
The middle-aged scholar smiled and said, “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’ve never killed me.”
Yes, if the middle-aged scholar had truly been determined to kill him, no matter if he had the yellow paper umbrella, the Thousand-Mile Button, or that letter, he would already be dead.
The middle-aged scholar’s smile gradually faded, and his face turned expressionless. “In my presence, even dying isn’t so 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 softly in their sheaths, ready for a final charge. The envelope was clenched tightly in his hand, ready to release its final sword at any moment.
True essence flowed with difficulty through his broken meridians. A storm rose in his sea of divine sense, preparing for the final blaze.
When he made this decision, he was truly calm.
Of course, there was still some reluctance.
He still had many things left unfinished.
……
……
Time passed slowly. The ten thousand swords still hadn’t left their sheaths, and 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’s edge.
One had white hair and a tense expression, especially when he looked at the middle-aged scholar, his eyes full of fear. The other bore a weathered look, but his age was hard to tell. He wore ordinary clothes and had a very calm demeanor, like a tourist seeking scenic spots.
But he was certainly no ordinary person.
Because the moment he appeared, the middle-aged scholar stopped looking at Chen Changsheng and turned to him.
Earlier, on the mountain path by the stream, neither Liu Qing, Little De, nor the Heavenly Machine Elder’s Cold Mountain Heavenly Stone Grand Formation could truly divert the middle-aged scholar’s gaze from Chen Changsheng, because his purpose in leaving 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 tourist-like man with such intensity.
The landscapes on his face suddenly blurred, then vanished without a trace, revealing his true form.
Was this respect or vigilance? Who in the world deserved his respect or required his vigilance? The Heavenly Sea? The Pope? Or the White Emperor?
No. That tourist-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 slightly cold wind howled through the cliff. 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 on the cliff was extremely strange.
The middle-aged scholar and the tourist-like man stared at each other in silence. Gradually, wind and thunder gathered at the point where their gazes met, then slowly faded, like drifting clouds.
Chen Changsheng knew that the situation had finally taken a turn, all because of that tourist-like man. But who was he?
He couldn’t imagine who else in the world, besides the Saintess Empress, His Holiness the Pope, and the White Emperor, could make the middle-aged scholar so serious that he temporarily set him aside.
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 didn’t die.”
That man smiled slightly and said, “Since His Majesty didn’t die, how could I die?”
The middle-aged scholar looked at him with a hint of pity and said, “But in the end, he still died.”