Fu Juan pondered a moment, frowning. “Is it connected to Jianmu?”
Nü Ba asked, “In this world, thousands upon thousands fall and die. In any single instant, countless things happen. Can we say there’s an inevitable connection?”
Fu Juan said gravely, “But Jianmu was felled by the Yellow Emperor. That nature is entirely different from natural decay.”
Nü Ba replied, “Yet the Xuanyuan Thearch gave us no answers. No one knows why he chopped down Jianmu. However, his consistent proposition was to sever the link between gods and mortals. Maybe cutting down Jianmu was just the first step he took? After all, Jianmu was one of the ladders connecting heaven and the mortal world.”
Fu Juan asked again, “Does Jianmu still exist?”
Nü Ba considered it for a while, then said uncertainly, “Hard to say.” She shrugged. “Xuanyuan Hill has Bai Ze and that foodie son of the Jinyun Clan. Who knows, they might have already burned Jianmu as firewood. Using such sacred wood as fuel, perhaps the roasted meat is a few degrees tastier?”
Jiang Yiguang’s eyelid twitched. “Son of the Jinyun Clan?” she asked, uncertain and shocked. From Nü Ba’s description, his relationship with Bai Ze seemed pretty good? But wasn’t that the ferocious beast Taotie?
“Yes,” Nü Ba sighed with emotion. “They once came to Western Kunlun, wanting to pluck some kind of spice from the rear garden. In the end, Luwu, enraged to the extreme, threw them out. That boy of Jinyun… his obsession with food reached the point of madness. Once, he nearly delayed military operations because of eating and got a severe beating from the Jinyun Clan.”
Jiang Yiguang realized Nü Ba was likely describing a younger version of “Taotie,” one who hadn’t yet turned completely rotten. So how did they later become the “Four Evils,” reviled by all and cast into exile?
“If you wish to see Jianmu, I can ask around for you,” Nü Ba’s gentle voice interrupted Jiang Yiguang’s thoughts.
“Then I shall have to trouble you, senior,” Jiang Yiguang gave a grateful smile.
Nü Ba smiled. She added, “You two stay at Red River for now.”
The Great Wilderness of the Mountains and Seas in the High Antiquity era was vast, remote, and lonely.
Above the Red River. Although the fire veins had gone out of control, with Nü Ba stationed here, not a wisp of baleful energy or fiery aura leaked out. There was no sign of the drought that scorched the earth for a thousand miles.
Jiang Yiguang sat on a rock by the riverbank, sweat trickling down her forehead. Her right hand pressed on the Dao Solitude sword as she mentally reviewed the flaws in her earlier sword forms. Both were Heavenly Maidens of Kunlun, and Nü Ba shared the same origin as the Nine Heavens Mysterious Maiden. Though their paths of cultivation weren’t the same, Nü Ba was more than capable of giving pointers in swordsmanship. If she wanted to master the Mysterious Maiden Sword, she couldn’t just study the transformation of “Wind.”
“When the Eight Winds stir, the four seasons shift. The change of wind points to the flow of years.”
“Emissary of Heaven, going everywhere, reaching everywhere—that points to space.”
Jiang Yiguang gazed at the primordial, distant scenery, faintly catching a trace of the passage of ages. But the sensation barely surfaced before it receded, leaving nothing behind. Frowning, she recognized her realm was still lacking. She set the thought aside for now and instead immersed herself in sensing the vast primal qi and spiritual energy of this desolate world.
“The Mountains and Seas haven’t yet become terrible.” A soft voice sounded from behind. Jiang Yiguang turned her head and saw Fu Juan with her hair tied in a ponytail. The illness that had tormented her had completely dissipated. Her face finally lacked that sickly, pallid weakness, yet it remained cold and pure, like a patch of unmelting snow.
“But this is only a captured image of a past era. What’s fated to unfold will eventually happen.” Jiang Yiguang spoke with a hint of regret. She couldn’t run to Zhuanxu and say, “Hey, your grandfather’s Water God Gonggong is going to contend with you for the throne someday and eventually head-butt Buzhou Mountain.” Nor could she say that in the future, ten suns would hang in the sky, bringing calamity to all living things, until Yi finally ended the rampage of the golden crows who wielded the status of Thearch’s sons. “But if we could stay until that period, would I gain a deeper understanding of the sun-shooting authority?”
“But can we?” Fu Juan asked softly. Her eyes were dark and profound, like a bottomless abyss. She didn’t probe into Jiang Yiguang’s secrets, but instead said leisurely, “The primal qi here is much richer than in the current Mountains and Seas Realm. Cultivating in this era—that’s how one gains power to rival the Four Evils, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Jiang Yiguang nodded and raised her sword once more.
The path ahead was long and arduous!
–
After staying at Red River for half a month.
The refined young man returned, this time bringing a piece of Jianmu wood as a gift.
This time, Jiang Yiguang learned the other’s identity: a son of the Yellow Emperor, Xuanyuan, who had taken the name “Ji” for himself. He cultivated the Grand Hundun Dao of the Ancient Central Thearch, also seeking to retrace the path of the Dao’s creation—from the silent nothingness to the birth of the myriad things. But right now, he had only just taken his first step.
It wasn’t until the youth finished reminiscing with Nü Ba and departed that Jiang Yiguang snapped out of her daze. The Yellow Emperor had many offspring, and many of their names were lost to history. In the lineage records compiled by later generations, she couldn’t find any youth named “Ji.” But a guess formed in her mind from the “Hundun Dao”—this Thearch’s son was most likely the future ferocious beast, Hundun! The state where breath, form, and substance were all one, before heaven and earth were created, was called “Hundun,” also known as “Taiji”—the Supreme Ultimate. His name likely came from this concept!
“Remnants of Jianmu. What’s left.” Nü Ba showed little interest in the tree that once propped up the sky. She tossed the foot-long branch to Fu Juan beside her.
Fu Juan caught it. This was but one-billionth of Jianmu.
Her fingertips gently brushed over the withered bark. She sensed a strange power within it, something akin to the divine essence of the Mountains and Seas, yet distinctly different. An unusual light flashed in Fu Juan’s eyes. She did not use her own spiritual power, but instead channeled a trace of the divinity she’d taken from Dongying into it. Suddenly, several ancient and mysterious runes were triggered.
Nü Ba hadn’t paid it much attention initially, but now her expression abruptly changed. A slap of her right hand shattered the rising runes.
This brief span of time was enough for them to memorize the shapes of the runes. Jiang Yiguang dipped her hand in water and wrote those “symbols” on the wooden tabletop, faintly sensing a familiarity. She thought for a moment, then erased the strange floral borders of the runes, revealing a word at its core—Yggdrasil.
Jiang Yiguang: “…” She never could have imagined finding traces of an Outer Domain script in the High Antiquity era.
Foreign script appearing within Jianmu, the pillar that supported the sky… Did this mean all worlds were one family? Or was it a “usurpation” and “erosion” that had been playing out since High Antiquity? Was this the reason the Xuanyuan Thearch had cut it down?
Nü Ba frowned. “What is this thing?”
“Yggdrasil.” Fu Juan expelled a breath of turbid air. “The World Tree of the Outer Domain’s divine court.” In the present world, the abyss that once stretched between such realms had vanished, and mythologies from various lands were all playing out on the same continents.
Nü Ba murmured, “Outer Domain, huh… the places beyond Return to the Void.” This was the era of gods; wherever there was space, divine power would be born. But the deities of the Mountains and Seas wouldn’t cross the Return to the Void Abyss, much less go to other domains to needlessly disrupt the balance. “Could Candle Yin’s disappearance be related to the Outer Domain?”
Jiang Yiguang frowned, unable to answer this question.
They had thought the resolution of the Dongying calamity in the present world meant the Outer Domain’s incursions had temporarily ceased. But now, it seemed the matter was far more terrifying than they had assumed. If the “erosion” had already begun back in High Antiquity, then what influence had they exerted on the future evolution of Shenzhou?
“It seems my original self didn’t know about this matter.” Before Jiang Yiguang could respond, Nü Ba smiled again. “But now, it appears the Xuanyuan Thearch had a legitimate reason to cut down Jianmu. Since he made his move, he must have discovered the enemy’s plot. There’s no need to worry.”
Jiang Yiguang made an “mm” sound, though traces of worry still remained on her face.
Even though the “World Tree” was the myth of an Outer Domain, people of Shenzhou were still well-acquainted with it. They knew of the divine tree whose branches and trunk formed an entire world; they knew of its Nine Realms and its divine court; they also knew of the poison dragon “Nidhogg” who gnawed upon the world, bringing about Ragnarok… If Candle Yin’s disappearance was related to the Outer Domain deities, would her concept be usurped by Nidhogg? Or by Jormungandr, the World Serpent?
Just as Jiang Yiguang was lost in thought over the “World Tree” matter, the system panel before her eyes reappeared. Her character’s attributes hadn’t changed much, but the line of text at the very bottom had now changed to “Hundun Fragment ×2.” A sense of ominous foreboding rose up in Jiang Yiguang. Before she could ask Nü Ba anything further, she felt a dizzying whirl. Her consciousness instantly plummeted into darkness.
A dream of a thousand years.
When she woke, what she remembered most clearly wasn’t Nü Ba’s bright face, but the runes peeled from Jianmu.
Reaching up to rub her groggy head, Jiang Yiguang quickly looked at Fu Juan, whose eyes were dark and deep, and asked, “You dreamed too? Of the High Antiquity era?”
“Perhaps it can’t be called a dream,” Fu Juan said slowly. “There might be a temporal rift here, sealing images of the past.”
Jiang Yiguang blinked, then asked again, “If everything was real, then was the matter of Jianmu ever resolved? Where would Candle Yin be? Would we have to find that divine court?”
Fu Juan had no answers to this string of questions. Her brow furrowed deeply, trying to tease out a thread from those mysteries. This journey through time had been too brief. They only saw the cause of “Candle Yin’s” disappearance; they hadn’t seen its result. In that era of gods, a time of surging storms and overturned heavens and earth, everything changed too quickly under the weight of tremendous power.
Their eyes met, and both felt a heaviness in their hearts.
Precisely at that moment, neither light nor heavy footsteps sounded. A tall figure appeared on the steps. Slowly, a yellow silhouette entered their field of view.
It was a tall, powerfully built young man, standing straight as a pine tree.
At least, if one ignored that blurred face lacking any facial features.
Yet Jiang Yiguang spontaneously filled in his features in her mind, sketching an aura of warmth and refinement.
A young man with many confusions.
In the past, he was named “Ji.” Today, he is called “Hundun.”
When fate was merciless, misfortune followed like a shadow.
Jiang Yiguang sighed inwardly and tightened her grip on the sword in her hand.
