48. Who Pays Tribute to Whom (Third Update, Ten Thousand Words)

Jade Qiong Mountain, Pure Immortal Monastery.

Song Qiuyue and the others also witnessed the strange anomaly in the sky.

Both the blazing sun and the crimson moon appeared together.

Day and night blurred into one.

Though none of them knew exactly what was happening, an unspeakable dread and unease gripped their hearts.

Before the collapse of heaven and earth, whether you were a Nascent Soul True Lord or of noble lineage, all were as insignificant as ants.

"This... this..."

Zhao Hai and the other cultivators could barely speak, stammering endlessly without managing a single complete sentence.

Only Song Qiuyue wore a perplexed expression.

She was a daughter of a renowned family, the Songs, whose heritage stretched back for generations. Naturally, the information she had access to far exceeded that of ordinary cultivators.

She had once glimpsed forbidden secrets in the family’s sealed records.

The mingling of day and night.

Such a phenomenon only occurred when the world itself was undergoing transformation.

Before the upheaval, the link between the mortal world and the nether realms was not yet severed, and even immortals walked among mortals.

But after the transformation, abominations took form.

With each passing moment, spiritual energy faded away.

When night and day were once again divided, all cultivators vanished, regardless of their level.

Even immortals were not spared.

Even with cultivation based on mortal resonance, one could at most achieve the status of Nascent Soul True Lord, enduring no more than eight centuries.

Cultivators sought immortality, the path to ascendancy.

How could they be resigned? Yet no matter how peerless your talent, no matter if your genius surpassed the ages, it was futile. You would either become dust, ascend to divinity, or turn into an abomination.

No other choice.

Some even speculated that mortal resonance was not the same as true spiritual energy.

The heavens of today were not those of old.

The laws of today were not those of old.

Were the people of today, then, also not the same as those of old?

All this was recorded in the secret annals of the Song clan.

The author was the clan’s venerable ancestor; he did not know if the speculation was true, only that the one who voiced it met a terrible end.

Crushed to dust, his entire clan was exterminated.

And so, none who knew of this dared speak a word of it.

Spiritual energy was simply spiritual energy.

Heaven was simply heaven, present law was present law.

People were people, as they had always been.

At that moment—

A flash of golden light streaked past, crossing above Song Qiuyue and the others in a blink, vanishing into the Pure Immortal Monastery.

A brass oil lamp, carrying the unconscious Chen Huangpi, sped straight toward the great hall.

As if it sensed the lamp’s approach, the doors to the hall opened of their own accord.

Incense curled within the hall.

A Daoist, garbed in dark blue-black robes, sat cross-legged, facing the entrance.

"Master..."

The brass oil lamp instantly recognized him—not the Grandmaster in purple, nor the Second Master in white, but the very one Chen Huangpi had always longed to cure: the master who ceaselessly patrolled the Ten Thousand Mountains, forbidding disaster, the one capable of anything.

"Master, please save Chen Huangpi!"

The brass oil lamp wept.

The master gave no answer, only gestured, and the lamp returned to its true form.

Chen Huangpi drifted to rest before him.

Though elderly, thin, and with hair turned white, the master was taller than most. Even seated, he was as tall as Chen Huangpi standing.

The brass oil lamp dared not make a sound.

It could only watch as the master placed Chen Huangpi across his lap, brushing the dust from his clothes.

Beyond that, the master made no move.

This drove the brass oil lamp nearly mad with anxiety. Unable to hold back, it pleaded, "Master, Chen Huangpi has stopped breathing! Please, save him!"

At these words, the master finally glanced at the lamp, a faint smile crossing his face. "No harm done. Huangpi is merely in a hurry to grow up."

"It is nothing serious."

"But..."

"Huang Er, you really are oblivious, aren’t you?"

The master teased, "It is rare for me to be lucid for a spell. Let me look at him a little longer. Next time we meet, he’ll be grown."

"Master..."

"Hmm?"

The brass oil lamp hesitated, then asked, "Outside, the sun and moon share the sky, night and day have mingled once more—could it be that the world is changing again?"

"Yes and no," the master nodded, then shook his head, though his loving gaze never left Chen Huangpi.

"The transformation has never truly ended. Why speak of ‘again’?"

The lamp replied, "I remember, when you created me, you said that after the upheaval, day and night would be divided again after six days and nights. Now, with such a phenomenon, is it not happening once more?"

"Six is the limit of yin, nine the peak of yang."

"Yin and yang are forever intertwined, inseparable; yin is yin, yang is yang, but from the extreme of one arises the other."

The master’s voice was obscure, but touched on the essence of the transformation. "The Ten Thousand Mountains are where the sun first sets and the moon first rises; thus, the world’s changes begin here—first the extreme of yin, then the extreme of yang."

"The extreme of yin is decreed by heaven, and I will not interfere. But as for the extreme of yang..."

The master spoke three words softly.

"I do not approve."

Those words struck a chord with the brass oil lamp.

It was so moved, its very oil boiled with excitement, wishing it could bow and call him ‘master’ as Chen Huangpi did.

But as it was about to speak, the lamp unconsciously began to flatter, "Master, to have been created by you—that is the honor of my life. The name you gave me is beautiful. I will not vanish like Huang Yi. I will remain at the Pure Immortal Monastery forever, always by Chen Huangpi’s side, always protecting him."

"You are quite devoted," the master said, giving the lamp a rare glance, teasing, "But you talk too much, always grumbling about me, though only in your heart, weaving fine complaints. That, you must change..."

He suddenly paused.

The brass oil lamp, thinking he was angry, hastily promised, "Yes, yes, I’ll never do it again!"

"No need for that," the master waved his hand, saying casually, "I knew your nature when I made you; you should remain as you are. Just watch your tongue, lest you corrupt Huangpi."

With that, he set Chen Huangpi down.

Only then did the lamp notice—at some point, Chen Huangpi’s chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

It truly seemed, as the master said, that he was simply eager to grow.

"Master, are you going to resolve the yang extreme?" the lamp asked, meaning the anomaly in the sky.

Passing by, the master replied with calm indifference, "That is not the true yang extreme, merely a false vision manifested within the Ten Thousand Mountains. If I forbid it, not even this illusion would remain."

"Look, it is gone."

The brass oil lamp looked up and saw that, in the blink of an eye, the blazing sun that had risen behind the red moon had vanished.

There was still an hour until dawn.

So it was night.

The lamp’s heart surged with awe, and it instinctively wanted to praise the master—but could no longer see his figure.

...

Outside the Pure Immortal Monastery.

A gentle breeze inexplicably swept through.

The thick white mist that had trapped Song Qiuyue and the others atop Jade Qiong Mountain dispersed in an instant, as if it had never been.

"The strange fog—it's gone?"

Only now did the cultivators realize that they were standing at the lofty gates of the monastery itself.

"Look! The inscription on the gate has changed!"

A voice cried out in alarm. Looking up, they saw that the original three characters of ‘Pure Immortal Monastery’ had, at some unknown time, become ‘Suppressing Immortal Monastery.’

And stranger yet—

With the fog gone, the monastery looked nothing like it had by day.

It was larger, with countless new buildings sprung up from nowhere.

No, that was not all.

The cultivators raised their eyes—and their bodies went slack, collapsing to their knees.

There was no pressure, no oppressive aura.

They simply saw, standing behind the monastery, vast, indistinct figures, divine yet demonic.

"Run! Run now!"

Song Qiuyue’s mind screamed only for escape.

She did not know what had happened, but this rare chance could not be wasted.

The farther they fled, the better.

At night, cultivators could not fly above the Pure Immortal Monastery, for they would be discovered and attacked by abominations.

But she had brought sixty divine protectors.

They were enough to shield her, to flee the Ten Thousand Mountains by night.

Yet—

The divine protectors gave only a single reply.

"Stay down. Do not move."

Song Qiuyue had no time to think, for footsteps sounded above their heads.

The sound drew closer.

No one dared lift their head.

When the steps reached them, Song Qiuyue caught a glimpse of Daoist shoes from the corner of her eye.

The shoes were a deep blue-black.

Not white, not purple, not green.

It was that uncanny old Daoist.

Song Qiuyue’s face turned ashen. She dared not even tremble, pressing herself even closer to the ground, clinging like a worm.

...

At this moment.

In the depths of the Ten Thousand Mountains.

Thunder boomed endlessly.

The earth shook, trees toppled.

The twisted divine statue howled at the sky, venting its rage on everything around it.

Black smoke poured from its form, scorching the land to ash.

Yet suddenly—

The statue stiffened, and the giant eye in its palm reflected the image of a gaunt old Daoist.

He wore blue-black robes.

Though tall, he stood before the statue like an ant before a mountain.

With a crash, the statue knelt on the spot.

Even the black smoke recoiled into its body.

Its hands were pressed together, bowing and saluting without cease.

The mouth on its chest opened and closed, as if pleading desperately.

"Still babbling after your throat bone's been taken," the master said coolly. "I brought you here from Great Qian, warning you of the consequences. But when I lost my mind, you all fled—fleeing would be one thing, but you, after suffering a little, sought to return. It's not so easy."

"Now you've become an abomination, and you would devour Huangpi? Truly, you are beyond redemption!"

"If not for the fact that you are the last divine statue left in these mountains, I would reduce you to dust this instant."

His voice carried no supernatural force.

No thunderous boom, no howling wind.

Yet the twisted statue quaked with terror, bowing and saluting again and again.

Without the black smoke, it seemed to regain some clarity—once more the pitiful deity whose offerings Chen Huangpi often stole.

But a mistake is a mistake.

Regret was useless now.

With a flick of the master’s finger, a chunk of flesh burst from the statue.

Unlike the other earthen deities, it was of true flesh and blood.

The meat gave off a delicate fragrance, pure and untainted, not a trace of black smoke.

In a flash, it became a plate of fruits and cakes, floating into the master’s hand.

When the statue looked up again, the master was nowhere to be seen.