Chapter 289 The Young Man of the Heavenly Eye, This is the Last Chance...
Beneath the messy, hard stone chips was a sapphire blue cover, not very bright, even somewhat dark, which appeared rustic and gray against the backdrop of snow.
It seems to have been buried for too long in the passage of time, like the withered leaves scattered on the ground, gradually losing its vitality.
The cover bears the four characters "Iron Khitan Book" written in a strong, slender font.
"It didn't originally look like this, and it didn't even have this name."
The old man with the peach branch in his hair suddenly spoke. He walked to Lin Feiran's side and looked at it with her.
"When I first saw it, it wasn't a book like this. It didn't even have a specific shape. It was just one struggling character after another, like rainbow light refracting on a stone surface, hidden in a blade of grass, and then quickly disappearing."
I brought a friend to see it, but he didn't see anything.
Lin Feiran looked down and noticed that the lower right corner of the cover was slightly curled up, making it two layers. Thus, the royal blue layer looked like a book cover rather than the book itself.
Everyone thought I suddenly saw this book, but it's not that simple.
No one else could see it except me, so I knew it was because I had cultivated a pair of Heavenly Eyes.
I thought I had stumbled upon some rare treasure, and finding it intriguing, I searched everywhere, turning over many places, before finally gathering these characters together into a pattern of light.
Then I realized that it might be a scattered book.
“These words were originally separate and seemed disjointed, but after I gathered them all together, they began to rotate on their own, like a shuttle weaving cloth, forming one coherent sentence after another.”
As Lin Feiran listened, he raised his hand to brush away the remaining pebbles, then turned to the first page. The pages inside were still made of stone, dusty and empty.
But every time she turned the page, the book would tremble violently, shattering all the stone into dust. The dust slid out and piled up in the snow-white ground, like a handful of fertile soil. The next moment, a tender sprout emerged from it.
The seals on the pages had all fallen off, revealing densely packed characters that were dazzling to the eye. It turned back to the title page, where a few words appeared. They were not written in ink like on the cover, but rather, as the old man had said, they were formed by the convergence of rainbow light and were not very clear.
The old man said, "This is a book of prophecy."
A spring breeze blows, and all things revive. Starting from the tender bud at your feet, countless lives burst forth from the ground, forming a continuous expanse. The peach tree, which had become a withered branch, suddenly sprouts and gives birth to the first spring peach blossom.
Peach petals swirled down and landed on the pages of the book.
The characters, which were as blurry as rainbow light, gradually became clear, and only five words appeared on the title page.
Lin Feiran's eyes snapped open, her grip on the book tightened, her fingertips turning white, and her once bright eyes were now fixed on a single point.
She spoke in disbelief, her voice trembling as if in a dream.
The old man said at the right moment, "When I first saw it, I wasn't as surprised as you are."
Lin Feiran glanced at the old man absentmindedly, then immediately lowered his head and hurriedly turned to the first page.
As the sun rose in the east, the Daohe Palace was bathed in splendor. Zhang Chunhe strode in with his many disciples, a smile on his face.
In the very center of the temple stands a jade statue, the founder of Daohe Palace and the teacher of all cultivators. His real name can no longer be mentioned, but everyone calls him Grandmaster.
This day happened to be the birthday of our grandmaster.
On this very day, a fox-spirit girl dressed in a pale yellow dress ascended three thousand steps and stood before the mountain gate, coming to seek guidance and instruction.
This is the first chapter of "You Know My Heart," but it is not actually a formal chapter; rather, it is the prologue.
The old man sighed softly: "Aren't you very confused? When I first saw it, I didn't know what it was either. As I read on, I thought it was a folk tale based on the two worlds."
Lin Feiran was processing the fact before her when she heard this and looked over.
The old man bent down, picked up a blade of grass, and continued, "I looked at these shimmering characters again and again, and I still couldn't believe it. I thought he had also seen these characters, so I secretly went to look. But that person knew nothing. He was just a minor cultivator in the Free Realm."
He turned to look at Lin Feiran. His brown eyes were very clear, unlike the cloudy eyes of an ordinary old man, and they carried a kind of calmness that came with the passage of time.
"These texts rarely mention the war between the two worlds, only a few episodes, but almost every sentence reveals something that confirms the beginning and evolution of the war, so I have to believe it."
These words may be a harbinger of the future from heaven and earth.
Lin Feiran lowered her eyes again, her lips pressed tightly together, her fingertips quickly turning the pages of the book. Her dark eyes followed the rainbow characters as she read the contents of the book almost at a glance, and the more she read, the more familiar it became.
The rushing sound also revealed the shock she felt inside.
She thought it was the last page.
In the original book, the story ends abruptly after Qiu Tong and Wei Chang get married. The so-called travels are just a few extra characters, not very clearly written, and the ending is also very quick.
At the end of the story, a familiar sentence appears.
Their journey continues, and their happiness will not cease.
Lin Feiran's hands gradually stopped turning the pages. Everything should have ended here, and this should have been the last page. But after that, the text continued, and the Iron Khitan Book was still half full.
Lin Feiran wanted to turn the page again, but found that a strange force was pulling at her. After struggling for a long time, she finally turned to the next page.
This page, unlike the previous ones, is not filled with dense text; it contains only a short sentence.
Nothing ever stops, and so, at an ordinary sunrise, ...it was born.
Before its creation, the characters were very blurry, like the reflection of a rainbow on the water's surface. Their shapes were blurred by the ripples, making them indistinct and leaving only scattered colored light.
But Lin Feiran knew very well that this was the Dao Lord.
Lin Feiran could no longer turn to the next page. She turned to the old man and couldn't help but ask, "Senior, why can't I turn to the next page?"
The old man looked at it calmly. He did not explain, but said, "When I first put these characters together, it didn't have so many, or even this sentence. It only stopped at the end, on the sentence 'Happiness will not stop.'"
One day, I woke up from my sleep and went outside, where I happened to see a friend of mine waiting in the courtyard.
I asked, "Why did you come to find me?"
He was puzzled and said, "What are you saying? You clearly invited me here to relieve my boredom, and then you fell asleep halfway through the conversation, leaving me here all alone. Humph, hurry up and make up for it with your fig plant!"
The old man paused, then pulled Lin Feiran to sit on the steps of the pavilion, gazing into the boundless distance.
Remembering something, Lin Feiran immediately asked, "You also went back to the past?"
The old man turned to look at her, somewhat surprised by her quick reaction. After a moment, he said, "Yes, after I sent him away, I realized that I had probably returned to the past."
"You should have met the friend who came to find me in the Pilgrimage Valley. His Taoist name is Jinmingzi, and he is the one that your descendants call the Ancestor of Medicine."
The old man was still reminiscing about that day, and his hand even unconsciously made a flipping motion as if turning a page.
I immediately began investigating, fearing I might have missed something, but when I reached the last place, I found an extra sentence where it should have ended.
The wind howled through this secret realm, making the pages of the book in Lin Feiran's hands rustle.
"I think this prophecy from heaven and earth has never stopped; it continues to be written, recording what has happened or is happening."
His withered fingers landed on the sentence: "I think that at this very moment, the Dao Lord was born, but no one, including myself, knew it or noticed it."
Lin Feiran gripped the corner of the page, his gaze fixed on that line of text: "I think he should have appeared around the time of the great battle, when the Goddess Sect members discovered that strange ice crystal."
The old man shook his head: "No, he appeared much earlier. That ice crystal was just a method he used to conceal his aura. At first, it was just a little frost crystal. I think later generations believed that it was growing bigger every day, right?"
Lin Feiran had already heard about this from the Goddess Sect. She nodded: "Yes, the Kun Clan of the Demon Realm discovered something unusual and observed it carefully for a long time. It is indeed growing little by little."
The old man's eyebrows drooped slightly, revealing a sense of helplessness: "However, the frost crystal itself will not increase in size."
Lin Feiran paused: "Won't it get bigger?"
The old man nodded: "Frost crystals are frost crystals. They are not growing, but rather like grains of sand gradually accumulating in one place, little by little until they become a large quantity."
Lin Feiran was still struggling with the pages of the book. She asked in confusion, "How do you know about the ice crystals? Is it written in the book?"
The old man shook his head: "The book never mentions ice crystals, but when it was first created, I was still alive. On a certain day and at a certain moment, I saw the same ice crystals and the same crack hanging high in the dome."
I saw the vital energy of the world surging within it, and the leaves of the world, before they had even fallen, had already begun to wither and decay.
Each time a certain amount of energy is absorbed, a piece of ice crystal will condense.
"When I had figured out a lot and wanted to destroy it, I returned to the past once again. This time it was the same scene, but the time was delayed. I was already in the courtyard, being nagged by the Ancestor of Medicine."
"Later, I returned to the past again and again, but the scene was getting closer and closer to this moment. In that crack that almost no one could see, the ice shards had grown to more than twice their original size. The characters gradually increased, but they also began to become chaotic."
"After that sentence, no sentences flowed together, like a tangled mess that I couldn't make sense of."
By then, the ice clouds were growing larger, and the northern plains were beginning to decay. I no longer had time to stop and study.
The crack was like a gaping maw of abyss; if it wasn't stopped immediately, it would swallow everything up before anyone even realized it.
The old man stood up and threw away the blade of grass in his hand: "Although the prophecy cannot be interpreted, I know the consequences of losing one's vital energy. At first, I told all my friends about this, but only a few believed me."
Later, the Patriarch of Medicine suddenly came to find me, saying that he had also returned to the past.
Gradually, more and more people could see the crack. We searched for a solution, but to no avail. Finally, in a moment of desperation, I chose to sacrifice myself to mend the sky, thus leaving a glimmer of hope for future generations.
Lin Feiran stared in surprise, but the old man only chuckled: "Although I am an old man, I still have some flesh. Perhaps I was full, or perhaps I had something stuck in my teeth. In any case, this crack was indeed hidden for a long time, and only reappeared later."
Upon hearing this, Lin Feiran's expression darkened, showing no surprise or shock. She slowly closed the book and stood up as well.
"So that's why there's a Flying Flower Gathering that's completely different from the one in the book, right?"
The old man paused, then asked, "Yes, although I died for my cause, others are still here... However, it's good that you're not as surprised as I expected."
Did you have this suspicion beforehand?
Lin Feiran brushed aside the peach petals on the book, nodded, and looked at the old man with clear, bright eyes.
"To be honest, senior... I knew about this storybook a long time ago, so when I participated in the Flying Flower Festival, I was full of doubts but couldn't figure out why."
Later, when King Qingping attacked the Demon Capital, Qiu Tong brought news of her rebirth. She also learned that Qiu Tong and Zhang Chunhe had also been reborn. With so many coincidences colliding in one place, it was hard for her not to have doubts.
However, the clues she obtained were too few to connect, so she could only speculate as much as possible, but she could never reach a final conclusion.
It wasn't until several months ago, as night was falling, that she suddenly recalled the Flying Flower Gathering and couldn't help but come to the conclusion that perhaps the Flying Flower Gathering was not a simple trial, but rather a truth that the sage could not tell the public.
Unable to provide further details, they opted for this demonstration.
Realizing this, she had a new question: if the night in Kunming at that time foreshadowed the world falling into the same indifference and darkness, then what did those flower farmers who kept dying and coming back to life mean?
She had just woken up and her mind was not yet clear, so she couldn't figure it out. When she went to visit Qiu Tong, she saw a familiar figure on the gate of Qingqiu City just as she was about to turn away.
Prince Qingping.
His spiritual power was mostly destroyed, and in such a chaotic world, he could only stand at the city gate and quietly watch the few children who were leading their people back.
The moment Lin Feiran saw him, she thought of his past, and the thread in her mind finally connected everything. He was reborn in this way, and how was he any different from those flower farmers who were reborn again!
Flower farmers are not reborn only once; perhaps they are too. However, such speculation is absurd, and she cannot be certain of it. It wasn't until yesterday, after she heard about Zhang Chunhe's past, that everything finally became clear.
By this point, she was certain that the reason so many highly accomplished cultivators were willing to join the esoteric sect was because of this opportunity for rebirth.
Just like Qi Chen, he had previously told Ru Xian that it was the cult that allowed him to see Cheng Hua again. However, this meeting was not because she had truly come back to life, but because he and the cult had returned to the past together, started over, and met again.
The temptation for people is that everything can be started over and all regrets can be made up for.
"Yes, if given the chance to start over, who would give it up? Even I, for a fleeting moment, wondered if things would be different if I could start over earlier, before I first discovered those characters?"
The old man sighed, but his gaze was fixed on Lin Feiran.
"If you had this opportunity, would you choose it?"
Lin Feiran lowered her eyes, picked up a pink peach branch that had been blown down by the wind. It was springtime all around. She looked at it quietly and replied.
“Every choice I make is one I do willingly. Before I make it, I have already accepted all the consequences, so I never regret it.”
She has never regretted it. She has said this countless times, and each time her conviction has grown stronger.
She prepared to tuck the peach branch into the book, but as she turned the pages, she discovered that the characters inside had already begun to sway.
After the line "[And so, at an ordinary sunrise, ... was born]", another line appeared out of nowhere, like a rainbow after the rain gradually stretching across the clouds, emerging stroke by stroke.
On an ordinary night, someone's fate changed; a crack appeared in the vast fortune, and destiny took a branch.
And so, on another ordinary day, a new variable, one not belonging to this place, was added to Luoyang City. She was born in the early morning sun, opening her eyes to this world that was about to decay.
Lin Feiran looked at the sentence and paused.
The old man leaned down to look at him, a relieved smile on his face. He said softly, "Sometimes, who can say that there is no fate in this world?"
He raised his hand and waved it, and everything in front of him vanished, leaving only a blank white space around him, with only the peach tree in front of him emitting a faint color.
He turned to look at Lin Feiran, his figure gradually disappearing: "Besides these characters and many ancestors, the Iron Khitan Book also contains one of my Heavenly Eyes. You once said that you were willing to mend the sky, so I'm giving you this Heavenly Eye. From now on, it's up to you."
He raised his hand, and a rotating eye appeared in his palm, like a cloud of mist, and it looked quite familiar.
Lin Feiran suddenly said, "This is a cloud pattern totem from Esoteric Buddhism!"
The old man smiled and placed the eye into her left eye, replying, "Of course, the other Heavenly Eye I cultivated is with the Dao Lord. He ate my Heavenly Eye."
Lin Feiran immediately felt a burning, sore sensation. She covered her left eye, which felt as if it were being burned by fire, but her vision became clearer and clearer.
She raised her eyes despite the pain and asked, "Senior, do you want me to use the remaining Heavenly Eye to mend the sky?"
The old man laughed loudly, and the peach hairpin in his hair withered in an instant: "I have nothing of value to offer as a thank you gift, but this Heavenly Eye is still somewhat usable, so please accept it."
Why need the Heavenly Eye? If the Dao Lord dies, how can the heavens remain?
"Young man, this is your last chance. Seize it while we old folks can still lend a hand."
The old man's figure disappeared completely, and the surrounding scenery turned into peach petals and vanished. Lin Feiran returned to the crowded disciples' quarters once again.
She looked at the iron Khitan book in her hand, a golden light in her left eye disappeared, and when she looked up again, she happened to see a wisp of mist outside the window.
The mist swirled into a vortex, converging in the center to form a blinking eye, staring straight at this spot.
Author's Note: [Heart emoji] [Heart emoji]
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