Chapter 154: The Vast History Books, The Fleeting Life
Chapter 154 – The Vast History Books, The Fleeting Life
“Teacher, even if you refuse to stay, you must at least tell me where your path leads.”
“You cannot possibly plan to keep even this from me?”
“Amusingly enough, I genuinely do not intend to tell you. With your stubborn temperament, you would undoubtedly come searching for me within three centuries. I have no desire to be endlessly pestered by you.”
“You are now an inheritor of the Heaven’s Mandate. As an existence destined to bear its weight, the karmic threads and worldly affairs you must face will be as numerous as the hairs on an ox.”
“I am a man who despises unnecessary trouble. You know this well.”
Hearing this, Wu Li’s lips trembled faintly. Reaching into his robes, he produced a pristine jade slip and presented it to Chen Changsheng.
“Teacher, these are my accumulated insights on the Dao. Regarding the third great realm of Body Cultivation, I have already comprehended seventy percent of its profound mysteries.”
“Grant me just a little more time, and I will absolutely bring this cultivation system to total perfection.”
Noting the aggrieved, almost pitiful expression on Wu Li’s face, Chen Changsheng accepted the jade slip with a soft sigh of feigned discontent.
“You are the sovereign of the world’s supreme holy land. Why must you always act so petulant?”
“Though the ancient texts decree that ‘there is no unending banquet beneath the heavens,’ they also state that ‘the rivers and mountains will inevitably meet again.’”
“I am merely departing, not stepping into my grave. If you continue to wear such a mournful visage, do you believe I won’t strike you?”
Rebuked by Chen Changsheng, Wu Li’s expression turned even more despondent.
“I can afford to wait, but the others cannot!”
“Uncle Yuanshan, Aunt Wan Yan Yue, and the myriad of souls you hold dear. Are you truly not afraid that you will never lay eyes upon them again?”
“Perhaps you should simply..”
“Utter nonsense!”
Before Wu Li could finish his plea, Chen Changsheng ruthlessly severed his words.
“You may have walked the furthest along this new path of cultivation, but do not forget that I am its architect.”
“How could I possibly be ignorant of this system’s absolute limits of longevity?”
“They ascended to the Life Lamp Realm not long ago, and that realm will absolutely not serve as their zenith.”
“Even by the most conservative of divinations, their life force will not wane for another two or three millennia.”
“Yet here you stand, claiming they cannot wait? Do you take me for a fool to be so easily deceived?”
Seeing that his petty stratagem had been laid bare, Wu Li offered a stiff, awkward smile.
Gazing upon Wu Li’s crestfallen face, the turbulent aura around Chen Changsheng suddenly smoothed into a tranquil calm.
“Rest at ease. I made a solemn vow to collect their bones when their time comes. I will undoubtedly return for that.”
“And I shall not merely act as the undertaker for them..”
At this juncture, Chen Changsheng let the silence stretch.
“I will return to bury you, as well.”
These final words were spoken in a barely perceptible whisper, as if uttering them too loudly would prematurely summon that tragic fate.
Hearing this quiet promise, Wu Li sank into a heavy, suffocating silence.
Although his teacher had never once elaborated on the depths of his own longevity, those who stood by his side had long since deduced the terrifying truth.
The reason this secret remained unspoken was simple: none were willing to embrace such a cruel reality, nor did they wish to burden Chen Changsheng with further sorrow.
Beneath the vast heavens, no cultivator truly dared to speak of “immortality.”
Even he, an entity destined to bear the Heaven’s Mandate, dared not make the arrogant claim of eternal life.
When the day finally arrived where his own life force crumbled to dust, what fathomless grief would be etched upon his teacher’s face?
The two men remained steeped in this silent communion for a long era. Ultimately, it was Wu Li’s forced laughter that shattered the stillness.
“Heh!”
“I possess absolute faith in Teacher’s supreme craftsmanship. When my era ends, Teacher must personally select the most magnificent burial ground for my rest.”
Hearing this grim jest, a faint, genuine smile finally surfaced on Chen Changsheng’s visage.
“Consider it done. I will undoubtedly secure a mausoleum worthy of your legend.”
“However, my services do not come cheap. You had best prepare an exorbitant sum for my tolls.”
Tossing those words behind him, Chen Changsheng scooped up Little Black and turned his back on the Sea of Learning.
Wu Li remained rooted to the spot like a statue, not daring to cast a single glance over his shoulder to watch Chen Changsheng fade away.
Because he knew, if he looked, his Dao heart would fracture from the pain of parting.
……
Outside the towering mountain gates of the Zifu Holy Land.
Chen Changsheng departed. As his feet touched the mountain path, heavy, goose-feather snowflakes began to drift down from the somber heavens.
Out of the entire majestic Zifu Holy Land, only a meager handful of figures stood upon the distant peaks to witness his exit.
Though their numbers were few, they were the only souls in this vast world who truly held Chen Changsheng within the depths of their hearts.
Gazing upon Chen Changsheng’s gradually blurring silhouette, Zi Ning let a bittersweet smile curve her lips as she murmured,
“I suddenly find myself wishing I were the snow, just so I might fall upon Sir’s shoulders.”
Beside her, Gongsun Huaiyu offered a soft chuckle. “But Sir walks with an umbrella. You would only ever fall upon its waxed paper.”
“Falling upon his umbrella would be a blessing, too!”
“In that form, I could accompany Sir for just a few steps more along his long road.”
“And if Sir were to brush the snow away..”
“Then let him brush me away,” Zi Ning gently interrupted Gongsun Huaiyu. “To linger within the warmth of his palm for even a single fleeting moment… that would be enough.”
Struck by the weight of those words, Gongsun Huaiyu fell silent. Zi Ning, too, allowed the quiet to reclaim her.
The lifespan of a cultivator stretches out like an endless river. The era Chen Changsheng had spent by their side amounted to a mere, fleeting decade or two.
Yet, it was precisely those brief, transient years that had carved indelible, eternal marks upon their Dao hearts.
Stirred from her reverie, Gongsun Huaiyu broke the silence. “You bear the responsibility of penning the Holy Land’s grand historical records. Have you inscribed Sir’s legacy yet?”
“It is written. See for yourself.”
As she spoke, Zi Ning retrieved a heavy tome bound in ancient beast hide and offered it to Gongsun Huaiyu.
After carefully leafing through the thick parchment, Gongsun Huaiyu frowned in bewilderment. “Why is the chronicling of Sir’s existence so sparse?”
“With Sir’s heaven-shaking brilliance, the ink devoted to him should span a hundredfold this length!”
Zi Ning turned her tranquil gaze upon the indignantly flustered Gongsun Huaiyu.
“Even if I were to bleed my soul dry and exhaust a lifetime of scholarly pursuit, I could not capture a fraction of Sir’s true majesty. If I were to transcribe my sheer reverence into text, the ink alone would drown the entire Sea of Learning.”
“But what purpose would such a feat serve?”
“Could every tome gathered within the Sea of Learning combined truly encapsulate the breadth of Sir’s existence?”
“The annals of history are far too shallow; they simply cannot contain the vast, turbulent ocean of his life.”
“Yet, the annals of history are also far too vast; a casual turn of any page inevitably reveals the quiet, unforgettable shadows of his ancient past.”
Silenced by the profound truth, Gongsun Huaiyu slowly lifted her gaze back toward the horizon, where Chen Changsheng was now nothing more than a solitary speck against the snow.
More than twenty years ago, he had descended upon the Heavenly Talent Assembly, leading a sickly, frail white hound.
More than twenty years later, he was departing, still accompanied only by that same frail white hound.
In the blink of an eye between those two moments, the heavens had overturned and the mortal realm had fractured, yet he remained fundamentally untethered, exactly as he was.
He appeared to lord over the entire universe, but in truth, his hands grasped absolutely nothing.
The sole entity capable of treading beside him was a hound named “Little Black.” What terrifying, suffocating depths of loneliness did such an existence endure?
How did Sir weather the crushing weight of such an endless, solitary epoch?
……
“Do you truly not wish to walk beside him for just one more stretch of the road?”
Zuo Xinghe came to a halt beside Wan Yan Yue. Fixing her gaze upon the snowy trail Chen Changsheng had left behind, Wan Yan Yue spoke with a heavy, unrippled calm.
“I lack the courage required to chase the phantom of true longevity. I fear my bones would simply shatter along the path.”
“Rather than curse him to witness another agonizing end, it is infinitely better that our journey together never begins.”
Leaving those words to freeze in the air, Wan Yan Yue turned her back to the snow and retreated into the depths of the Zifu Holy Land.
Tracing the solitary line of footprints that the blizzard was already moving to erase, a complicated smile touched Zuo Xinghe’s lips.
“Imperial Father!”
“I have long since eclipsed the pinnacle you once stood upon, yet even I find myself devoid of the raw courage to pursue a Dao of longevity that is unequivocally doomed to end in ash.”
“When you burned your bridges and hurled your life away to charge into the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land, exactly how much madness and bravery did your mortal heart contain?”
……
A hundred miles away.
“Little Black, this is entirely your fault. If it weren’t for your presence, I wouldn’t have to keep putting on this insufferable, aloof facade.”
“It’s tens of millions of miles from here to the Eastern Wasteland. Without spatial traversing arrays, just how damn long am I going to be stuck flying?”
Subjected to Chen Changsheng’s petty grumbling, Little Black merely cracked an eye to shoot him a disdainful sidelong glance, then lazily rolled over in his arms and went back to sleep.
The mutt’s entire aura seemed to scream: You’re the one obsessed with acting like a transcendent immortal, and now you’re dumping the blame on a dog? Are you even human?
Ignoring Little Black’s blatant contempt, Chen Changsheng cast one final look over his shoulder toward the distant Zifu Holy Land.
“Whatever. Guess we’re taking the scenic route.”
“If I turned around and slinked back to use a spatial traversing array now, my grand exit would be utterly ruined.”
“Besides, I’ve got another four centuries to kill. Might as well stretch my legs.”
With a resigned sigh, Chen Changsheng’s form dissolved into a streak of piercing sword-light, tearing through the horizon and vanishing into the snowstorm.
Little Black’s vitality was visibly withering by the day. Gongsun Huaiyu’s husband, Nalan Xingde, had already been forced into a state of crystalline slumber to seal his decaying lifespan.
For the sake of this slumbering man and this dying hound, Chen Changsheng had to unleash his gluttony upon the Nether Forest. No matter the cost, he would descend into that cursed domain, turning himself into a hollow maw to devour the living essence of the forbidden woods until it was starved of its very soul.