Chapter 292 The Furnace of All Things
Upper Realm Changfeng Valley.
“Fairy Maiden, the array outside the valley flickered just now, but we didn’t see anyone come in.” Gu Qiongyi’s black hair was coiled into countless small braids that hung down her shoulders. She looked outside with a solemn expression, and finally her gaze fell on the young woman in front of her.
Fairy Biluo raised her eyes. "You may step back now."
"Yes." Although Gu Qiongyi had doubts, she still obediently walked out of the hall.
After a moment, silence returned to the main hall, except for the sound of Fairy Biluo striking the wooden fish in front of the huge Buddha statue and lotus in front of the door.
"The person you're looking for isn't here." After a moment, the woman who was squatting slowly opened her eyes and said to the person in front of her.
How did the fairy know?
A man slowly appeared in front of the door, the light and shadow dividing him into two distinct lines. His upturned eyes swept over the furnishings in the hall, and he slowly spoke.
"So you still refuse to acknowledge me?" Fairy Biluo slowly stood up, her devout gaze vanishing, her eyes turning indifferent. Her long, trailing brocade dress accentuated her ethereal and otherworldly aura.
A hint of sarcasm flashed in Baili Mochen's eyes, but it disappeared in an instant. "Where is that person?"
Fairy Bilu frowned. "I told you, he's not here. If you came only for this matter, you can leave now."
She left those words behind and slowly walked up to Baili Mochen, her emerald pupils like pools of clear water. "You were the one who led her in there last time. How can you go back on your word so easily when you've made up your mind?"
"Those who achieve great things do not concern themselves with trivial matters, and they are even less bound by love and affection."
——
Demon Palace.
Beneath the circular white pool, the shape of white mist appears and disappears, while at the edge of the pool, a man in white slowly stops, his appearance as beautiful as an immortal.
Once the white mist completely enveloped the deep pool, he stepped into it, and after a moment, his figure slowly disappeared into it.
On a rocky cliff overlooking a deep pool, a woman glared angrily at the man in front of her.
"You knew they were just trying to get him in, so why... why did you still..." Tears welled up in Gongsun Yetong's eyes, and she bit her lip hard, trying not to cry.
She had finally seen him again, how could she bear to watch him step into the trap that someone else had set for him?
"This is the master's choice, and you have no right to interfere." Yingge glanced at her, her voice indifferent.
"You—" Gongsun Yetong took a deep breath and calmed herself down before saying each word clearly, "You know perfectly well how he was defeated ten thousand years ago, and now you have the heart to watch him repeat the same mistakes?"
Yingge finally turned his head and looked at her directly.
"She's a menace, isn't she?" Gongsun Yetong sneered, her fingernails digging into her palms, yet she felt no pain whatsoever.
Perhaps her heart died ten thousand years ago.
"Shut up." Yingge frowned and uttered the two words, clearly having reached the limit of his patience.
“Once we get rid of her, he'll have no weaknesses left, and he'll get his revenge, just like we did—”
Before Gongsun Yetong could finish speaking, the man's two fingers were already pointing in front of her, and a fierce aura rushed towards her, making her tremble involuntarily.
“Even if she dies, the master will not like you,” Yingge said, his eyes devoid of any emotion. “Miss Gongsun, this is the last time.”
Gongsun Yetong closed her eyes, cold sweat already streaming down her back. Only after the two fingers on her forehead were removed did she reopen her eyes, staring at the man's departing figure, her fists clenched tightly.
——
Within the boundary.
There was only silence in response to Sang Wanyue; the "big eye" in the sky seemed to have suddenly disappeared into the boundary.
In the vast darkness, only the silhouettes of two women leaning on each other can be seen.
No matter how Sang Wanyue called out, the girl in her arms grew weaker and weaker, as if she would leave and become a cold corpse at any moment.
"Pointy!"
Mu Jianjian did not hear the woman's indistinct calls. She only saw herself standing in an endless sea of blood red, her feet on red soil, her head under the red sun, with no end in sight.
As he stepped forward, he suddenly noticed a protruding object. Looking down, he saw it was a severed limb belonging to a woman.
Not far away, half of a woman's body was buried under the red soil, still twitching slowly.
"Help me..."
Just as Mu Jianjian was about to touch her from behind, a voice came from behind her, "She's beyond saving. Once infected by that black liquid, there's no way she can survive, just like this world."
“Zhong Chuan?” she asked, turning around.
The man did not answer her, but turned and walked toward the red pillar that had fallen from the sky.
"Zhong Chuan!" Mu Jianjian caught up, "What does 'black liquid' refer to? How can we stop them? Why—"
"I don't know how you survived, but now there's no hope left." The man spoke as he walked, but there was no sign of life in him. He finally stepped beside the red pillar, and seemed to remember something, chuckling softly.
"Xiaoqi has been waiting for me for a long time, and I can't let her be lonely any longer."
Mu Jianjian's eyes widened suddenly, "Wait, Rong Yuqi—"
Before she could finish speaking, the man's body vanished into thin air the instant it touched the red pillar. She abruptly withdrew her hand and stood there, stunned.
At this moment, Mu Jianjian could clearly feel that she was the only person left in the whole world. This was the final ending of the original book, and the "eye" clearly showed these things to her.
An overwhelming sense of loneliness welled up inside me, but there was nothing I could do.
There is no time, no life.
Mu Jianjian stood amidst the black and red world, raising her eyes to look at the giant pillar descending from the sky. As if drawn by its power, she slowly walked to its front, raising her hand to touch it, when the familiar aura of the Yellow Springs descended from the sky, surrounding her.
"Pointy".
A familiar male voice reached her ears, and Mu Jianjian looked up in a daze, seeing a white-clad man holding an umbrella surrounded by a blanket of white.
She lowered her head and remained silent for a moment, then suddenly raised her hand and touched the red pillar. In the next instant, the surrounding gazes shifted, and she was pulled into the man's arms.
The red and black world was finally separated by a corner of white, illuminating her vision, and Mu Jianjian could finally see the face of the man in front of her clearly.
"Pointy!"
Startled by her suicidal actions, Chi Wenqing couldn't help but call out, though her voice remained gentle despite her anger.
"Senior brother." Mu Jianjian gave a bitter smile, showing no intention of reminiscing or joking with him. After uttering those two words, she fell silent.
She didn't know why she was angry; she just felt a kind of inexplicable fire burning inside her, and her nose felt sore and she even felt wronged.
“Jianjian, you can’t touch that thing. If you do—” Chi Wenqing lowered his eyes.
"Do you know what that red pillar that fell from the sky is?" Mu Jianjian recalled what the cultivator from Changfeng Tower had told her in "Panmen," and after avoiding the man's gaze, she suddenly interrupted him.
"I know." He felt bitter at the sight of the girl's distant attitude.
"Do you know what this red and black world is?"
"Know."
Mu Jianjian pursed her lips and nodded, "Do you know about the 'eye' in that realm, and the Longevity Tower's plan?"
"I know." Chi Wenqing gripped the umbrella handle tightly, uttering the two words with great difficulty.
"I don't know. I don't know any of what you're saying," she suddenly looked up, staring into Chi Wenqing's eyes, and said each word clearly, "Before, in the Wood Spirit Clan, I knew about the difference in strength, so I didn't ask. Then at the Cloud Crossing Pavilion, you said the time wasn't right, fine, I listened to you. But now—"
“I have removed the ‘Manluo’ from the lower realm and have come to the upper realm. Are you still going to remain silent?”
"Jianjian, after we get out, I'll..."
"Why have you been avoiding this question?" After spending so long in the chaotic world, Mu Jianjian finally couldn't suppress her emotions any longer. She spread her hands and stepped back, her expression full of confusion.
"Jianjian, calm down and listen to me—" Chi Wenqing looked at the retreating girl with heartache, reaching out to touch her head, but was suddenly pushed away by her.
"I don't want to calm down! You've been keeping everything from me! If you won't tell me, fine, I'll go find them myself," Mu Jianjian took a deep breath, biting her lip to keep herself from crying and showing weakness first, "I'll go find 'Panmen' and 'Manluo' myself. I'll face the people from Shangxian Palace and Changsheng Tower all by myself."
“I can accept that you are not there for me when I am in danger, but I cannot accept that you know the truth and choose to hide it.”
“Although I have Yueyue and the others, but…” she choked up, paused, and continued, “but they are not you.”
"You are my little prince... my senior brother..."
When Chi Wenqing saw the girl in front of him wanting to rely on him but not daring to, his heartbreak was clearly visible in his eyes.
He finally spoke, “In the great war in the Upper Realm ten thousand years ago, a crack appeared in the sky. That crack is the source of the red pillar you just saw, as well as the origin of the black liquid, Manluo, and so on.”
"Legend has it that people can obtain the way to become immortal and godhood through that passage, hence the name of the Longevity Tower."
Mu Jianjian sniffed, her mind slowly calming down. She speculated, "That crack was created because of a great war ten thousand years ago, so the people of Changsheng Tower believe that the blood in the world can stimulate the crack to open?"
She recalled the way the people of Changsheng Tower performed the blood sacrifice in the "Panmen" and became even more certain of her guess.
"right."
Mu Jianjian gasped.
So the destruction of the world in the original book was simply due to the immortal dreams of those people in the upper realm?
They want to become gods, so they wantonly trample on the lives of the weak.
A feeling of nausea rose in her heart, and a memory suddenly flashed through her mind of the jade slip her beautiful master held when she first traveled back ten thousand years. "What role did the Celestial Palace play in all of this? Did my master... know all this all along?"
She clearly remembered the two words on the jade slip—
"furnace".
In the eyes of the people of Changsheng Tower, is their world like a furnace for cooking meat?
"Yes," as time passed, Chi Wenqing's complexion grew increasingly sickly, and the umbrella in his hand began to appear and disappear intermittently, as if it might vanish at any moment, "Back then, the Emperor of the Immortal Palace used Qu You's life to coerce Immortal Venerable Zilu into doing things, and while she outwardly submitted, she secretly told me the truth—"
"The Emperor and Empress were able to tolerate my establishment of the Demon Palace and expansion of my power outside, just to drag the Upper Realm into bloodshed and turn it into a furnace, opening a rift to another world. It's just a pity that they were too ambitious, and in the end they were devoured by the black liquid in that rift. Before I died, I also dragged them into the Yellow Springs. It's a pity about that fool Bai Ji."
In just a few words, the author lightly recounts the pain of being used and abandoned by his birth mother and the dangers of fighting against the entire celestial palace.
Mu Jianjian grew increasingly alarmed as she listened, biting her lip and grasping Chi Wenqing's hand, finding it icy cold to the touch. "So, when you broke into the Immortal Palace for the test and obtained the Broken Brocade Scroll, you had already foreseen it—"
She remembered that the purpose of the Broken Brocade Slip was to preserve certain memories and true energy.
“I had long expected that I would die,” Chi Wenqing chuckled. He reached out and lifted the girl’s face, wiping away the tears from her eyes. “No matter which life I am, I am still me. Jianjian, you don’t need to be sad.”
Even with such comfort, Mu Jianjian still felt a piercing pain, and she sobbed uncontrollably.
The pain and suffering she faced were nothing compared to what her senior brother had endured. He was so powerful, yet he had truly died, and was even murdered by his own mother's schemes.
"The people of Changsheng Tower will first build the 'Panmen' to raise demonic beasts to feed the 'Manluo'. Once the 'Manluo' is formed, they will put cultivators into it as a 'mark'. That 'mark' is the key to attracting the red pillars from the gaps."
"Once the world is covered with marks, the red pillar will be more likely to descend through the cracks, and once it hits the ground, the black liquid will flow out and devour all life."
"So the 'mark' from ten thousand years ago—" All the questions were answered, and Mu Jianjian suddenly thought of something.
“I am the ‘mark’ from ten thousand years ago. And now, one of them is a cultivator who can communicate with the black liquid, and thus formed that ‘eye’ realm to brainwash people’s souls, and conjured up this place where we are.”
To calm the girl's agitated emotions, Chi Wenqing pulled her into his arms. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his expression unchanged, still bearing a gentle smile. "Jianjian, let's talk about the specifics after I pick you up, okay?"
It's like trying to fool a little child.
“That gap… since it was opened by the Emperor and Empress ten thousand years ago,” Mu Jianjian smeared her tears and snot all over the other person’s white robes as if it were the most natural thing in the world, without the slightest guilt, “is there any way to close that gap?”
Upon hearing this, Chi Wenqing's smile suddenly froze, his pupils turning dark and unreadable at first glance, but his tone remained unchanged, "Not yet, Jianjian."
"Oh," Mu Jianjian didn't notice his abnormality. She murmured softly in the man's arms, a strange feeling suddenly enveloping her. "Then why did you hide these things from me?"
I'm worried about you.
"Really?" Mu Jianjian lifted her head from his embrace and asked seriously.
"Okay." Chi Wenqing nodded. "I should take you back now. It's not good for you to stay here for too long, okay?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com