Chapter 291
After getting satisfactory news from Kuang Mian, Yu Tu left Guixu. This was originally a good start, but he was stuck at the second step.
The original body was watched closely, and all visiting cards sent by the vests were rejected. The Emperor was even willing to send a small cross-domain teleportation array to Yu Tu's home for inspection every day, and would not let him set foot in the Grass and Tree Clan.
As for asking forcefully or hinting in a teahouse?
Haha, the patriarch will make you realize how difficult it is to deal with a tree.
Thinking of this, Yu Tu sighed as he stood in the desolate backyard, with a worried look on his face. Today, the clan leader was obviously frightened by the medicine he prescribed and looked in pain, but he refused to reveal a word and even asked him with a smile whether he wanted to come again tomorrow.
Yu Tu felt distressed and angry, and wanted to smear the teacup on his face!
So he got angry... and got angry for a while.
There was no other way. If he was used forcefully, he would act like a rogue. If he was used softly, he would act like a fool who didn't understand. It was impossible for Yu Tu to strangle the clan leader by the neck and force him to tell him all the plans.
Even if he really pinched it, Diwu probably wouldn't say anything. It looks like a laughing tree, but when it gets really stubborn, it's more stubborn than anyone else.
Why doesn’t he learn from Kuang Mian in this regard?
Yu Tu exhaled slowly and adjusted his fluctuating emotions. He half-knelt down and placed his palms on the mottled white bricks. Energy flowed regularly from his palms to the bricks. Red lines swam around with him as the center. When they reached a distance of fifty meters, the red lines closed into a circle, and with the circle as the boundary, they returned to his direction.
In the past few days, Yu Tu has been trying to restore this special sacrificial formation. He found that when the deduction got stuck, he didn't need to seek external help. As long as he kept searching his heart, he would be able to find the right path through the stumbling blocks.
Even if this is a simplified version, the radius of the sacrificial formation is fifty meters when unfolded. The intricate and tangled formation patterns are dizzying at a glance. With ten meters as a boundary, the red lines slowly crossed the obstacles and got closer and closer to Yu Tu. Finally, all the red lines were gathered in Yu Tu's palm. The cold feeling in his palm increased dramatically, as if some strange living creature was being pressed down. Yu Tu frowned in discomfort and wished he could pull his hand away immediately.
But reason overwhelmed emotion, and he did not stop there. Instead, he injected some energy into the formation. Along with an inaudible buzzing sound, the red patterns in the formation became more and more dazzling, and the scarlet light began to move around in a regular pattern - the formation was completed.
Having completely constructed this formation, Yu Tu naturally knew its function—to sacrifice all the living beings within the formation and convert them into the purest "energy" that is higher than spiritual energy. The energy supplies the core of the formation and assists the core in undergoing a transformation.
It may sound ordinary, but "the whole of a living being" refers to their soul, body and even the chance of reincarnation, while "rebirth" is to distribute the "evil" formed by the sacrifice to the sacrificed objects, thus assisting in the painless upgrade of the core.
Translated into understandable language, it roughly means "No punishment for murder, no punishment for evil deeds."
Such a heaven-defying formation naturally has many limitations. If it weren't for the simplified version drawn by Yu Tu, which used energy higher than spiritual energy and was in line with the idea, it would probably be impossible to replicate it in a short time.
Now that he understood the effect of the formation, Yu Tu was ready to disperse this evil formation. But before destroying it, he suddenly had an inspiration—the inspiration came quickly and urgently, and it was a new idea that he had never imagined before.
What if... he flips this formation?
The body seemed to be faster than the brain, and energy was injected again. The red patterns that were rolling like living things suddenly froze and began to "fade".
It slowly turns from a bizarre red to a soft, blurry white. If you look from above, you can see the glowing white gradually infecting the entire formation.
Sweat broke out from Yu Tu's forehead, sank into his temples, and slowly flowed down his cheeks - flipping this formation consumed ten times more energy than constructing it!
The mottled white stone bricks on the ground made a crackling sound like corrosion, and the white lines that had faded away looked like living fish, agile and natural. If Yu Tu had not forced himself to change his ideas when he stopped to deduce before, the progress would have been stuck. But now, everything went extremely smoothly, as if this formation was meant to be this way.
This is a good thing and a bad thing.
There was still a conspicuous red circle left in the formation, but the white lines could not be closed no matter what - no matter how much pressure Yu Tu put on himself, he could not hold on any longer, and all the energy he had obtained recently had been poured into the formation.
The two colors were caught in a long tug of war. In the end, the red color fought back fiercely, but the reversal formation failed. An unprecedented terrifying backlash rushed towards Yu Tu!
At this moment, the severe pain in his heart made Yu Tu unable to breathe. A large amount of blood gushed out of his body and merged into the almost collapsed formation under him.
Yu Tu tried to force himself to stay alert, but the world before his eyes was spinning. The red and white formations, the sky suddenly darkening, and the impact on his consciousness...
Then all the blood color on Buyehou's face faded away, turning as pale as paper. The blood did not stop, but continued to flow out of his body, and was completely absorbed by the half-destroyed formation.
He fainted lightly in the center of the formation.
Under the softening of blood, red and white reached an eerie balance; they intertwined and entangled, giving off a faint dark blue hue. In the trance, there was the sound of waves crashing on the shore.
*
Gu Hongying had a very long dream.
In the dream, he seemed to have turned into a white fish, swimming in the boundless blue-black ocean. There was no sun or moon, no time, only endless loneliness.
He swung his tail and saw many incredible sights while swimming—
Snowflakes float from the ground to the sky, becoming unfettered clouds; ripe fruits shrink smaller and smaller, swaying and turning into blooming flowers; old people walking with crutches become toddlers in the sun...
He heard countless farewells ringing in his ears, he heard the newborn baby turning into non-existent bubbles, he heard time going backwards, always going back to a time that had never been recorded on paper.
He heard the wind blowing through the dense branches, he heard himself happy, speaking in a language he did not understand, and he felt an unprecedented surge of spiritual energy around him... His vision was the first to disappear, and his hearing was also gradually fading away, as if there was an invisible membrane between him and the world.
Everything was so strange, he seemed to be a stranger who had accidentally entered this world, and he felt many joys and sorrows that did not belong to him.
The overload of memories that did not belong to him made him like a powerless boat in the waves, and time was pouring down to drown him.
But... who is he?
His stagnant thoughts made it impossible to write down an answer; he seemed to be lost in time.
"Shirazawa."
There is a voice that passes through the chaotic time, so familiar.
He is... Shirazawa?
It was as if a premonition told him to agree.
He agreed and said he was Shirazawa.
He opened his mouth, and whether it was his intuition or his emotions that were guiding him, he was almost about to admit it.
But the same voice spoke again.
He said, "Gu Hongying."
Same voice, two different names.
Who is he?
【Gu Hongying. 】
———He made his choice.
The sea water stagnated at this moment, the overload time began to flow again, and everything returned to normal.
The snow fell to the ground and turned into muddy water, the fruits fell from the branches and rotted on the ground, the old man with a cane left time in the sunset...laughter filled the ears, the newborn baby was born into the world and uttered its first cry, and time was moving forward.
He came to his senses and realized that he was not swimming alone in the ocean, but was one of those white fish that were connected to each other.
He followed a certain trajectory, rising from the bottom of the sea. When he left the sea surface, he felt light all over. He saw himself turning into a white bird, flying farther and farther, higher and higher, until he flew above the clouds. Then he looked down and saw the world of fireworks under the hazy clouds.
That was his way home.
…
"Blah--Blah--"
The sea is lapping against the shore.
Gu Hongying opened his eyes and saw the blue-black, boundless sea water. Clusters of white fish, like silhouettes, surrounded him, emitting soft white light. They pushed him to the surface of the sea. He saw flocks of white birds above his head.
The white bird guided the direction, and the white fish carried him to the shore.
The moment Gu Hongying rose from the sea, the white fish sank to the bottom of the sea and the white bird disappeared into the sky. He waded through the water and walked to the real beach. The ocean once again became a silent mirror, without any ripples.
The returnee still stood in the same place, looking up at the sky, as if there was something in the sky that attracted him very much.
Gu Hongying looked up along the line of sight. Above the blue-black ocean was a sky full of stars. Beyond the stars, the light clouds and mist that obscured them were fading away at a speed visible to the naked eye.
He saw the complete and stunning starry sky.
It was a vastness that made one dizzy and confused. Gu Hongying wondered, was this the legendary star map of Guixu?
"You spent seven days in the Endless Sea."
Guixu's grey robes are specially made. The vision of the people wearing them is not obstructed, but others cannot see their expressions through the hood.
He heard the hoarse voice of the ruiner, with a sense of dryness as if he had not spoken for a long time: "Gu Hongying... his fate is sealed."
All my memories faded away at a rapid pace the moment I left the sea, just like a dream quickly blurs out after waking up: "What does 'fate is frozen' mean?"
"You resonated with the Gate of Life and Death, and after the resonance, you made a choice." Kuang Mian's voice contained a bitterness of the other shoe finally landing, as well as a sense of relief that the dust had settled. "Fate determined your future after you made your choice."
Gu Hongying still didn't quite understand. He asked softly, "Can't you tell me everything?"
How long will he be kept in the dark?
Kuang Mian said: "After this month, before the barrier is broken, I will tell you everything."
This was the first time that Gu Hongying received such a definite answer, even though there seemed to be a huge terror lurking behind this answer.
He said, "Okay."
Kuang Mian stretched out his hand, trying hard to control his hand from shaking. A teleportation array appeared beside him: "Go to the Grass and Tree Tribe. Someone is waiting for you there."
Gu Hongying's figure disappeared in the teleportation array, and Di Xiu emerged from the darkness. He asked, "Why is fate frozen?"
Emperor Xiu did not understand star maps, but he had lived long enough to be involved in all aspects of life. He once asked Kuang Mian about the fate stars of Yu Tu and Buye Hou. Kuang Mian did not give a very precise answer, but only told them to pay attention to Yu Tu's life safety, while Buye Hou said "it cannot be said".
After Yu Tu returned safely from the Kunlun Forbidden Land, Emperor Xiu visited the Endless Sea and saw the vast star map with his own eyes. With the help of some stargazing techniques, he saw the fate stars of Yu Tu and Buye Hou.
Their destiny stars are almost overlapping. The destiny star of Buyehou is bright, but like a glowing shadow, while the destiny star of Yu Tu is dim, but occupies an important position. There is only a line between the two that is so shallow that it is almost invisible.
Even without understanding the star map, Di Xiu could tell that the fate star was wrong - a person's fate would only be connected to that of others, but they were all independent of each other, and rarely seemed to be fused together.
Unless... it's a legacy.
The old tree is about to die, new branches are sprouting, bloodline inheritance, the old and the new are alternating, and only then can such a strange destiny star be born.
However, if it is an inherited destiny star, there will not be a dividing line between the two. However, if it is an independent destiny star, the distance will never be so close.
Emperor Xiu was puzzled, and Kuang Mian, who knew the most about star maps in the world, was also puzzled. Looking at all the recorded destinies, the current situation had never occurred before.
Di Xiu did not tell anyone what he saw that day, but hid the worry deep in his heart. However, there was an invisible fuse in this worry, and one day it would be ignited.
He heard Kuang Mian's answer after the ignition: "The reason why fate is fixed is because the predecessors took the initiative to intervene."
In the endless sea, filled with the breath of life and death, Gu Hongying could only stay there for three days. It was the Marquis of Buye who intervened and took the initiative to guide him, forcibly extending the time.
He guided Gu Hongying to abandon [Bai Ze], completely break away from the past, and become the purest destiny of the human race. The moment he woke up from the endless sea, he no longer had any relationship with Bai Ze.
Abandoning the [Demon] part and upgrading Gu Hongying, there is only one candidate left among the plant spirits that can match the previous level.
After sighing, Kuang Mian spoke out his fate: "Senior Buyehou used me to completely replace the imperial palace."