In the deep, dark, boundless void, because his soul was forced into hibernation, Ruan Qing'an felt as if he were imprisoned in endless darkness, unaware of the passage of time and unable to perceive anything.
Only 037 was chattering away, trying to dispel its loneliness.
[Ancestor, that move you made was so cool! It's just that you might have to hibernate for a while longer.]
[If they can find a treatment, it should speed up your recovery, ancestor; otherwise, you'll have to rely on the system's self-healing, which will likely take much longer.]
Ruan Qing'an lowered her eyes: "It's nothing, it's not a big problem."
The only one who will have a tough time is Shen Changlin...
After saying that, there was another long silence. It was unclear how much time had passed, but in the darkness that felt like a prison, Ruan Qing'an suddenly heard faint music coming from the zither.
She was slightly taken aback: "How could there be music playing here?"
Not only that, but not long afterward, a ray of light suddenly appeared in the darkness, flickering like a guide.
It leaped and bounded, then gradually disappeared into the distance.
It was particularly attractive to Ruan Qing'an, who was now a spirit.
037: [Found him, ancestor! Such a person was mentioned in the original text, just like Lou Yunqi, a background character—Mu Cangwu. He is skilled in the path of the soul, his methods are unpredictable, he is both righteous and evil, and it's difficult to judge his good and evil.]
[As mentioned in the original text, Mu Cangwu once slaughtered hundreds of people in a city for his own selfish desires, and also spent ten years traveling throughout the cultivation world practicing medicine after accidentally seeing a doctor practicing by the roadside.]
Compared to Lou Yunqi's bloodthirstiness and ruthlessness, Mu Cangwu is a more self-centered person, which is probably his signature skill.
[The Soul-Guiding Melody is said to have the power to communicate with the underworld.]
Upon hearing this, Ruan Qing'an frowned slightly. Since she was forced to stay here and remain in hibernation within the body until the problem of the original owner's damaged body was resolved, she might as well go and take a look.
Most importantly—she didn't believe it was a coincidence.
Mu Cangwu is probably looking for her.
Following the faint sound of the zither and the flickering light, Ruan Qing'an felt as if he were being drawn by something, enveloped by a cold and eerie aura. Then, as if he had crossed a barrier, he felt a squeezing, slightly painful pressure.
The next moment—the scene suddenly brightened, revealing a field of spiritual herbs, with ancient-style stone lanterns dotting the landscape, their dim lights illuminating the space. She had appeared in the very center of the field.
"here it is……"
Ruan Qingan was somewhat surprised and looked around.
Having broken free from the constraints of the original body, she now appears in the form of a spirit; in short—Ruan Qing'an is currently floating and "walking" as a ghost.
Along the way, even the spiritual herbs passed directly through Ruan Qing'an's illusory body, even though with her current strength, she could easily solidify into a physical form, indistinguishable from her real body.
However, this is a novel experience nonetheless.
As they drifted to the edge of the spirit herb field, next to the babbling brook, stood a vermilion, single-eaved octagonal pavilion. Inside, a man in a blue robe placed a guqin (a seven-stringed zither) on his lap, pressed his hands against the strings, and closed his eyes as if sensing something.
He must be Mu Cangwu.
The man had a handsome and gentle face, like a clear breeze and a bright moon, like a refined scholar, without any trace of the ambiguous nature that 037 described.
Since it is a spirit, it is not afraid of being discovered spying.
Ruan Qing'an remained floating in place, showing no intention of going over. She silently observed Mu Cangwu with her leaden-gray eyes. At this moment, she suddenly asked 037 in her mind.
"This is the Fragmented World, right?"
Yes, that's right...
"The Supreme God also placed a fragment of his consciousness here, right? The apocalyptic world is Eleven, so who is this world?"
Ruan Qing'an suddenly chuckled. These were all things she and he had experienced together, and after realizing it, she understood everything.
037 was still a little confused: [Is it...is it Mu Cangwu?]
She then said, "Didn't I not finish telling you the whole story in the apocalyptic world last time, little system? I talked about how I used all my savings to create a body for X09, who was Xie Huainan at that time."
"Eleven is the body I created myself to carry Xie Huainan's consciousness, but this matter has crossed the bottom line of the Administration Bureau. A system is a system, and a mission taker is a mission taker, but Xie Huainan's appearance has begun to blur this line."
"So the former chief god was angry and demanded the destruction of x09. He also sentenced me to spend the next hundred years repaying the debt to the Administration and making up for the losses caused by this incident, on the grounds of betraying the Administration."
037 tensed up: 【And then what happened?】
"Am I someone who resigns myself to fate?"
Ruan Qing'an scoffed: "The moment the former chief god made this judgment, I overturned its desk and turned the Administration Bureau upside down—didn't it say I caused losses to the Administration Bureau? If I didn't cause any losses, how can I compensate it?"
037: [...Oh, so did you lose money?]
Ruan Qing'an's gaze became even stranger: "How is that possible? The former chief god said I betrayed the Bureau, so why should I pay compensation?"
037: ...That makes some sense, though not much.
"After that, I defected with Xie Huainan and was hunted down by the Administration Bureau. Because his core data was still in the hands of the former God, the body I created was not enough to truly reach the point where even the former God could not easily erase Xie Huainan's existence. I had to find another way."
"So he and I came to this world of cultivation, which is the highest level of all three thousand planes."
"Using the entire world as the vessel for his consciousness, the body that is reassembled and merged with the body he originally created is the true Xie Huainan. In this way, even the former chief god would find it difficult to kill him, because killing a world is extremely difficult."
"Everything that exists in the world may perish, but the world itself is eternal. This is actually the prototype of the supreme god."
037: [What kind of trouble are you guys causing now?]
Ruan Qing'an paused, then said, "We didn't do anything special. We just seized the Heavenly Dao and let Xie Huainan take its place."
037: ...I see. So, your banditry of overthrowing the former chief god and taking his place started right here, didn't it?
I can't even imagine what else they could come up with!
But the next moment, 037 belatedly realized: [Wait, so Ancestor, you mean the fragment of consciousness that the Supreme God placed is within the Heavenly Dao of this world?!]
"...It should be."
Whether it was the time on the floating island, the giant eye that appeared in the sky, or the massive lightning tribulation that chased Shen Changlin—all of them gave Ruan Qing'an a very familiar feeling.
Moreover, the lightning tribulation dissipated spontaneously when it sensed her aura. Last time, when she broke through, she attracted the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and also felt something being awakened, the strange feeling that she was being spied on.
As expected, it was Heaven that discovered her.
037 was about to go crazy: [Wait, wait! How could the Heavenly Dao have emotions? Otherwise, it would have collapsed long ago!]
"That's why Lou Yunqi and Mu Cangwu came into being."
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