Chapter 138: Ten Thousand Miles Away, Within a Few Breaths
What did this mean? Could it be that those severed and blocked meridians had all been repaired?
Chen Changsheng stared at the scene before him, stunned into silence.
Countless great rivers flowed freely across the plains, irrigating the rice paddies on both banks.
On the plains, many lakes could also be seen, some large, some small, scattered like stars.
Clear and beautiful landscapes, lovely scenery, a myriad of sights—all were now inside his body.
So this was what normal meridians were like.
So this was what perfect energy apertures were like.
So this was how true essence should flow through meridians—smooth and unobstructed, not the sluggish, difficult movement he had always felt before.
Chen Changsheng gazed blankly, and before he could feel joy, sorrow crept in.
Yes, he was still alive, and it seemed he would live better than before.
His illness… seemed truly cured.
No more curses.
Fate had been overturned.
Though he was still in self-contemplation, he felt as if his body had become much lighter, as if countless burdens had been shed.
The shadow at the edge of the sky before him, which had accompanied him for seven years, was gone. All that remained were magnificent rivers and mountains, infinite light!
He opened his eyes.
He saw her figure.
She stood with her hands behind her back at the edge of the divine path, gazing at the night sky, her robes slightly damp.
In the distant rainy night, the last bolt of lightning, exceptionally thick, fell, illuminating the entire Mausoleum of Books and casting her shadow as extraordinarily towering.
He didn’t know what to say.
Except for thank you.
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress’s reply was very unceremonious, as if she had merely done a trivial thing.
But why was this?
“I saved you not because you are my son, nor because of those three squirrels, but because I dislike the person you were.”
“Then why did you save me?”
“I am will. You are my son, so you are the continuation of my will.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress offered no specific explanation. She never needed to explain her actions, even to him.
“I heard you once said that your illness cannot be cured—that it’s fate.”
Chen Changsheng was silent. He had indeed said that—to Xu Yourong, to the Little Black Dragon, to himself, many times.
“Even if this truly is your fate, if I do not allow you to die, then you cannot die,” the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress said.
Back then on Cold Mountain, Xu Yourong had said she wouldn’t let him die.
At the bottom of North Bridge, the Little Black Dragon had also said she wouldn’t let him die.
The feeling when the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress said this was naturally very different.
Because when she said it, she could make it happen.
Even if her opponent was called fate.
“I believe in things like fate, but I have never respected it,” the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress said, looking at the starry sky with an expressionless face. “Since we must defy heaven and change fate, of course we cannot respect it—we can only use it.”
Chen Changsheng recalled the first sentence Wang Zhice had written in his notes.
Both were truly remarkable people. Their attitudes toward fate might differ slightly, but in essence, they were the same.
At that moment, the wind stopped and the rain ceased. The night clouds gradually scattered, revealing the true face of the stars. But the fate hidden behind them remained unknown in form.
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress looked at the starry sky and said, “Heaven’s Dao wants you dead, so I want you alive. Heaven’s Dao says if you don’t die, then I must die. So I will fight it, and see who is stronger.”
Then she withdrew her gaze, looked out at the world beyond the Mausoleum of Books, and said, “As for these people, they are nothing but jumping clowns after all.”
As her words fell, wind swirled around the Mausoleum of Books, lifting a corner of her robe.
Her body still stood at the peak of the Mausoleum of Books, but Chen Changsheng had the feeling that she had already gone a thousand miles away.
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Ten thousand miles away, in Xining Town, the night was deep and quiet, a small stream babbling.
Fish rested peacefully in the crevices of the rocks. Petals drifted down from upstream, circling around a pair of bare feet as white as jade, refusing to leave.
That monk lowered his head, gazing at the flowers and fish in the clear stream, lost in thought.
A footstep sounded by the stream bank, very calm, very relaxed, yet it seemed to contain countless thunderclaps.
The fish at the bottom of the stream scattered in terror, burrowing deeper into the rock crevices, but they couldn’t find a way, constantly crashing against sharp rock edges, drawing blood.
Fish blood spread through the stream water, staining the petals a vivid red. Those petals left his bare feet and met in the small whirlpools on the water’s surface.
The monk pondered for a moment, then raised his head to look across the stream, his expression very grave.
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress stood with her hands behind her back on the stream bank, looking at him expressionlessly.
Ten thousand miles—for her divine soul, it was but a single thought.
The monk lifted his left foot from the stream water, bent it beneath him, and joined his left thumb and ring finger, almost touching, forming a lotus seal.
In his right hand, he held a string of dark brown prayer beads, which turned slowly on their own. As the beads moved, fragments of time’s true meaning lingered.
He looked at the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress, parted his lips slightly, and began to chant sutras.
The sutras he chanted were somewhat unusual—not common Daoist scriptures, but a kind of obscure text with a strange tone, rising and falling with its own rhythm.
These were Buddhist gathas.
The Buddhist sect had long been severed from this continent, but the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress knew something of it. The strands of hair at her temples stirred without wind, as if she were pondering something.
As the Buddhist gathas rang out, the petals in the whirlpools on the stream’s surface joined more tightly, gradually merging into lotus flowers.
A pure, profound holy light slowly seeped from those overlapping petals.
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress stood by the stream, yet it seemed as if she stood in the lofty night sky.
What had come to Xining Town was not her physical body, but a projection of her divine soul in space, moving with her thoughts, immensely towering.
An indescribable pressure radiated from her. Her eyes became extraordinarily bright, like true stars.
The lotus flowers in the stream gradually left the whirlpools, drifting in all directions. A few drifted toward her, but more drifted toward the opposite bank.
The monk’s expression grew even more solemn. The prayer beads in his hand turned even more slowly, as if mountains were shifting between his palms.
The stream became absolutely still, with no sign of flow. The trees by the bank seemed to want to freeze as well, but were instead shaken violently by the suddenly raging night wind.
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress looked at the monk and said, “Since you dare to return, don’t think about leaving again.”
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…
Thousands of households still slept, but the Daoist remained awake.
He looked toward the Mausoleum of Books, a grave expression appearing between his brows, then turned and left.
The night rain had thinned. He turned and walked into the darkness, disappearing to an unknown place.
The next moment, his figure appeared by the Bridge of No Return over the Luo River.
He took a small, delicate hourglass from his sleeve and placed it on the railing.
Time’s passage was silent, easily overlooked, until various measuring tools were invented.
The hourglass was undoubtedly the most primitive tool for measuring time, but precisely because it was primitive, it was reliable.
The Daoist calmly watched the hourglass, knowing that in twenty-seven breaths, the other party would be able to determine his true location.
Fine sand poured from the upper half of the hourglass to the lower. Just as it was about to run out, the Daoist vanished again.
The moment he disappeared, a cold aura appeared on the Bridge of No Return. The Luo River responded, stirring up waves, then quickly calmed, even forming a few ice shards on the surface.
A dark shadow appeared where the Daoist had stood—it was the ruyi scepter from the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress’s waist.
That ruyi seemed to harbor an extremely powerful soul, no longer a lifeless object, searching for the Daoist’s whereabouts.
In the cold cavern at the bottom of North Bridge, a young girl in black clothes was in a deep sleep. The wound like a cinnabar dot between her brows was, for some reason, exceptionally vivid.
The Daoist had now arrived outside a mutton bun shop on the northwest side of the capital.
He glanced at the hourglass in his hand and knew that this time he could only stay for twenty-three breaths.
The time the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress needed to determine his true location was getting shorter and shorter, which also meant she was getting closer to finding it.
If she could pinpoint the Daoist’s location, she would surely strike with full force to kill him.
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…
The Heavenly Sea Holy Empress stood atop the Mausoleum of Books, calmly looking toward the direction of the Li Palace.
Much of the night had already passed, and dawn was not far off.
Yet the Li Palace remained very quiet. The old man who lived there, the one she herself had to treat with caution, had still not made his voice heard.
…
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Zhu Luo, the Stargazer, Bie Yanghong, and Wu Qiongbi—these great figures who had come with the wind and rain—all heard the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress’s voice.
The fifteen princes of the Chen family who had infiltrated the capital under cover of night, as well as the restless opposition, also heard her voice.
That voice was calm, yet so overwhelmingly domineering.
Earlier, the Daoist had said she dared not eat Chen Changsheng because of cowardice, because she dared not gamble, because she feared Heaven’s Dao.
Yet she simply disdained to use Chen Changsheng as a bargaining chip to gamble on Heaven’s Dao’s direction. Instead, she would gamble with Heaven’s Dao for victory or defeat!
Except for a very few strong practitioners, no one knew that the Holy Empress’s divine soul had already gone ten thousand miles away, and her strongest portable artifact was also searching for enemies in the capital’s streets and alleys. People watched her standing silently with her hands behind her back atop the Mausoleum of Books, and a trembling they could not suppress rose from the depths of their hearts.
That was the highest point of the capital, and also the highest point of the world, because she had stood there for over two hundred years.
The distant ground suddenly trembled. The accumulated rainwater splashed up, scattering into countless droplets across the land.
Thunder rumbled across the plains, and occasionally lightning flashed there, illuminating the faint figures of countless cavalry.
The thunder was real, but it was also the sound of hooves.
Except for northern fortresses like Yongxue Pass that required heavy defenses, tens of thousands of the most elite cavalry of the Zhou Dynasty were marching toward the capital under the command of eleven divine generals!
They were the most loyal subordinates of the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress’s rule over this world, and also her most powerful military force.
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(On October 7th, there will be a simplified Chinese book signing for Ze Tian Ji at the Shanghai Book City. If you all have time, come and play. There’s a place to sign up online on Qidian’s homepage.)