Chapter Ninety-Seven
The Divine Lords of the Ancient Realm had lived for so long that most of their temperaments had been worn smooth by the endless passage of time, much like the Maitreya Buddha. Over the past few centuries, the only event that truly stirred excitement in the Ancient Realm was the resurrection of the True God Bai Jue within the Primordial Spirit Platform. Once that fervor subsided, everyone settled back into their peaceful routines.
When calamity struck, these gods proved exceptionally capable, yet during times of peace, they knew how to enjoy themselves far more than the immortals, demons, humans, and spirits of the Lower Three Realms. Over the century that Shang Gu remained in the Ancient Divine Realm awaiting Bai Jue’s rebirth, she came to realize that the Divine Realm had become almost unnervingly tranquil since its rebirth after the great calamity sixty thousand years ago. The chaotic, tumultuous events of the past were nowhere to be found.
Perhaps it was because the Star-Moon Goddess, who had always been the most unrestrained and fond of stirring up trouble, was no longer here… As this thought crossed Shang Gu’s mind, her hand holding the teapot paused ever so slightly.
Sitting across from her, Bai Jue noticed the distant look in her eyes and knew she was likely reminiscing about events from tens of thousands of years ago. Yue Mi had perished in the Mortal Realm, Tian Qi had vanished from Purple Moon Mountain, and Blazing Sun was in seclusion, cultivating his power. The number of people left in the Divine Realm who could keep her company and converse with her grew fewer and fewer.
He wondered how she had endured this past century. After all, she had once been a vibrant, proud, and unrivaled soul, full of life and energy.
“In a few days, let’s bring Yuan Qi up to the Divine Realm,” Shang Gu suddenly spoke, taking a sip of tea as a trace of nostalgia and amusement flickered in her eyes. “You have no idea how mischievous he was as a child.”
When Yuan Qi first ascended to the Divine Realm, he was merely a hundred-year-old toddler, yet he managed to wreak havoc and throw the entire Divine Realm into chaos—a testament to his remarkable talent for trouble. At the time, Shang Gu was furious and initially planned to give the boy a sound beating before hanging him in front of the Ancient Divine Hall as a warning. However, Tian Qi, who doted on him, feared the child might suffer psychological trauma at the hands of his mother. So, under the cover of a dark and windy night, he took Yuan Qi down to the Mortal Realm and left him at Great Marsh Mountain to become a disciple.
Shang Gu had always advocated a hands-off approach to raising children, especially for a troublemaker like Yuan Qi, so she turned a blind eye and reluctantly agreed. She was well aware of Dong Hua’s character—he was more than qualified to be Yuan Qi’s master. The Mortal Realm was different from the Divine Realm; with his Divine Power sealed and his identity unknown, Yuan Qi could grow up normally. If he had been raised in the Divine Realm all along, the boy would likely have become the most notorious second-generation wastrel in history, just as his mother had been a hundred thousand years ago.
Hearing Shang Gu mention Yuan Qi, Bai Jue’s hand holding the cup stilled, and his brow furrowed slightly.
“He’s been in the Mortal Realm for many years now. In the early days, I often watched him through the Water Mirror. Tsk tsk, you have no idea how his senior brothers and nephews at Great Marsh Mountain spoiled him rotten,” Shang Gu remarked with a sigh, her eyes and brows alight with joy whenever she spoke of Yuan Qi, a clear sign of how deeply she cherished her only child. “It was Blazing Sun who reminded me that the Mortal Realm has its own way of life and that I shouldn’t interfere too much. I was also afraid of indulging him into becoming utterly lawless, so I haven’t looked into the Water Mirror for many years now. I heard that Dong Hua ascended recently. Without his master to keep an eye on him, that little rascal is probably running even wilder.”
As Shang Gu spoke, she was about to conjure the Water Mirror to take a look at her precious son, but her hand was stopped by Bai Jue’s grip.
Startled, she looked up and saw Bai Jue gazing at her, his eyes filled with uncertainty. “What’s wrong?”
“Shang Gu,” Bai Jue began, but his voice carried a hint of hesitation.With Bai Jue's temperament, Shang Gu had seen him with such a silent and solemn expression no more than three times in total. She had seen it when she sacrificed herself for the world, when she stabbed him through the chest in the Vault of Heaven and banished him to the Mortal Realm forever, and now, this was the third time.
A sense of unease rose in Shang Gu's heart, and her expression turned grave almost instantly.
"What's wrong..." Before she could finish her question, a majestic surge of Divine Power erupted from the Mortal Realm, tearing through the sky and actually breaking through the Divine Realm's seal, illuminating the entire Divine Realm.
Primordial Chaos Power!? It was actually Primordial Chaos Power!?
Shang Gu abruptly stood up, staring at that white Divine Light. Before she could use her Divine Power to investigate what had happened, the Divine Light that had emerged from the Mortal Realm vanished.
"What's going on? Why would A Qi's Primordial Chaos Power suddenly appear?" Shang Gu's face turned cold and stern. She flicked her sleeve, about to descend to the Mortal Realm, but Bai Jue grabbed the edge of her sleeve.
"Shang Gu!"
She turned her head, anger flashing on her face. "What exactly is happening? A Qi's Divine Power was sealed by Tian Qi. How could the Primordial Chaos Power suddenly appear? And just now..."
"A Qi broke the seal and ascended to godhood," Bai Jue calmly stated.
"That's impossible. If he ascended to godhood, how could I not know..." Shang Gu blurted out, then paused. "Was it you who sealed the Divine Power fluctuations from the Lower Three Realms?"
The Divine Realm and the Lower Three Realms were fundamentally separate spaces. Unless it was a crisis threatening the very existence of a realm, events in the Lower Three Realms were insignificant to a True God. Thus, even if Dong Hua and Hong Yi had ascended to godhood one after another, it was nothing more than trivial matters to Shang Gu.
But if Yuan Qi broke the seal and ascended to godhood, it would trigger the manifestation of Primordial Chaos Power. Such a vast fluctuation of Divine Power could not possibly escape her notice, unless...
Sure enough, Bai Jue nodded. "I sealed his Divine Power fluctuations."
"Why?" Shang Gu frowned. "Did he encounter a life-and-death calamity?"
Yuan Qi's Divine Power was sealed by Tian Qi using True God power. Unless faced with a life-or-death crisis, with only two hundred years of cultivation, it would be absolutely impossible for him to break it.
"Great Marsh Mountain has fallen," Bai Jue sighed.
"Great Marsh Mountain is a giant of the Immortal Realm. How could it...?" Shang Gu was stunned. She casually formed an Immortal Incantation to calculate and couldn't hide her surprise. "Great Marsh Mountain truly faced a calamity of destruction."
The two birthday banquets from hundreds of years ago were still vivid in her memory. Who would have thought that the deeply blessed Great Marsh Mountain would suffer such a disaster? No wonder Yuan Qi could break the seal. He had always valued sentiment deeply; the fall of Great Marsh Mountain must have struck him hard.
"Why did you hide Yuan Qi's ascension to godhood from me?"
Countless sects of the immortal and demon races had perished over hundreds of thousands of years. Although Great Marsh Mountain was important to the Immortal Realm, it was merely a drop in the ocean beneath the Divine Realm. Even if the fall of Great Marsh Mountain prompted Yuan Qi's ascension, Bai Jue had no reason to hide it from her.
Recalling the Primordial Chaos Power that had appeared for just a moment, Shang Gu's expression suddenly changed. "Does A Qi face a calamity?"
Realizing this, she ignored Bai Jue's attempts to dissuade her, conjured the Water Mirror, and looked toward the place where the Primordial Chaos Power had just appeared.
Above Rakshasa Land, silver Primordial Chaos Divine Power erupted from a young man kneeling on one knee in mid-air, enveloping the entire Rakshasa Land. Countless immortals and demons collapsed under the pressure of this frenzied Divine Power, their faces pale and blood spilling from their mouths. If not for the sudden appearance of a Fire Phoenix spreading its divine wings to contain the Primordial Chaos Power within a hundred-meter radius of the young man, likely none of the hundred thousand immortals and demons on Rakshasa Land would have survived.After a century of secluded cultivation on Phoenix Island overseas, the Celestial Emperor Feng Ran finally returned at the most critical moment when the war between immortals and demons was about to reignite and Yuan Qi's divine power erupted.
"Yuan Qi!" A majestic divine voice emerged from the Fire Phoenix's mouth, startling the nearly frenzied white-robed Divine Lord.
Yuan Qi's face was blank, still gazing into the depths of the immortal barrier, clutching a handful of calamity ashes in his hand. The blood-stained Primordial Spirit Sword beside him whimpered mournfully, an indescribable sorrow and desolation.
"Aunt," he said, looking at Feng Ran, who had transformed into her human form, dignified and silent. After a long while, he spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed toward the void above Rakshasa Land.
Feng Ran was greatly alarmed, catching the falling, unconscious Yuan Qi. As her divine power swept over him, her eyes revealed unconcealed worry and surprise.
Yuan Qi's divine power had vanished entirely.
Throughout the ages, he was the only Divine Lord born as a High God, possessing the noblest Chaos Origin. Yet, after ascending to godhood, he had completely lost his divine power.
As if sensing the equally incredulous gaze from the upper realm, Feng Ran lifted her head and looked toward the direction of the Ancient Divine Realm.
The mountains of corpses and seas of blood in Rakshasa Land faded from Shang Gu's sight. She stared at the young man in Feng Ran's arms, who seemed almost devoid of life, then abruptly turned to Bai Jue. Upon closer inspection, one could see her hand trembling slightly as it rested on the Water Mirror.
"Do you know... do you know how he grew up?" Shang Gu's lips were startlingly pale, and a rare mistiness appeared in her eyes. "Do you know how much he longed for his father to return? You knew all along about this calamity he would face, yet you hid it from me. You..."
Shang Gu's choked voice was drowned in a warm embrace. Bai Jue gently stroked her shoulder, over and over, but remained silent until her trembling body gradually calmed.
"I know, I know it all," a sigh escaped Bai Jue's lips as he gazed at the scene above Rakshasa Land in the Water Mirror. "He has grown up. This is his choice, Shang Gu. We can only accept it."
He was a True God and also a father. Back then, he had descended to the Mortal Realm to dissuade Yuan Qi, but in the end, he saw in the child's eyes a determination no less than his own. In the end, he could only respect his choice.
"We have already endured too much," Shang Gu whispered, tightening her grip on Bai Jue's sleeve. The mist in her eyes gradually condensed into tears, soaking into Bai Jue's shoulder. "But his future will be even harder than ours, Bai Jue. If he cannot wait for..."
"It will pass. Thousands, tens of thousands of years—all calamities will pass," Bai Jue's voice slowly faded within the Star-Gazing Pavilion.
From beginning to end, no one understood whom Shang Gu was waiting for—whether it was the only Fire Phoenix born against the heavens in the Three Realms and Eight Wastelands, or the Little Divine Lord whose fate was as lofty as a Celestial Venerable's yet filled with hardship.
The once tumultuous Three Realms suddenly fell into silence on this day. The return of the Celestial Emperor, Yuan Qi's madness, and Ayin's soul scattered and spirit dispersed buried everything in dust, concealed beneath falsehoods.
Until five hundred years later, when the pitiful female ghost Ayin on the Bridge of Helplessness caught sight of the white-robed Divine Lord beneath the glow of ten thousand lanterns in the Underworld.
At that time, she did not yet understand that the desolation and silence reflected in that glance were not only the white-robed Divine Lord's—her own eyes held the same sorrow.
Unfortunately, aside from the handsome and dashing Ghost Lord Xiuyan swaying at the head of the Bridge of Helplessness, no one else noticed.She walked across the Bridge of Helplessness time and again, lived through one lifetime after another—countless absurd lives, endless tales of lotus-like beauty—yet she never remembered who she had been before becoming the female ghost Ayin.
Year after year, lifetime after lifetime, she reincarnated in solitude, her soul tempered to immense strength, her mind grown more cunning than even Xiuyan, her nature honed to a ghostly subtlety surpassing that of emperors. Yet she could never forget that fleeting encounter glimpsed in the depths of the tranquil Water Mirror.
So deeply engraved was it that even when urging Xiuyan to cleanse all her memories of past lives, she could not help but ask once more who the white-robed Immortal Lord had yearned for thousands of years ago.
Alas, all she heard was Xiuyan calling her "Ayin"—perhaps he could not bear to let her go. Once a hundred lifetimes of memories were erased, there would be no more female ghost Ayin in the Ghost Realm.
That handsome Ghost Lord who had accompanied her on the Bridge of Helplessness for a millennium would be lonely, she thought, as the underworld waters submerged her head.
She did not notice the blazing Ember Fire outside the dark waters, turning the entire Ghost Realm bright as day. That vast, pure phoenix flame surged through the River of the Dead, reaching the far ends of the Three Realms, the shores of the Nine Provinces, awakening the slumbering immortals and demons who had slept for a thousand years, and rousing Wutong Phoenix Island, which had lost its young lord for over a millennium.
The female ghost Ayin did not know who she had been a hundred lifetimes ago, nor did she ever know who she would become a hundred lifetimes later.
Just as she believed that single glance was the most unique romance in her thousand years as a ghost, unaware it was the calamity and ill-fated bond from a hundred lifetimes past.
But did that matter? Feng Yin had returned. Perhaps to her, the life of a Water Condensation Beast and the hundred lifetimes of the female ghost Ayin were but fleeting moments in an existence spanning millions of years.
In this world, who plays the role of deep affection, who betrays whom—such matters have never had the slightest connection to the Little Phoenix Lord of Wutong Phoenix Island.
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