After the Great Dao Died

Chen Lingxi kept his eyes closed in cultivation until the sixth month arrived.

In the mountains there are no Jiazi markers.

Ever since carving the name onto the Host Star Stone, Chen Lingxi had remained in closed-door cultivation in the Mount Qiaoji Cave for over two months.

The Pure Wondrous Qi Pivot Array operated day and night. The spiritual pool within his qi sea surged like boiling water, and his Qi Circulation cultivation advanced significantly.

As he carefully studied the Pure Wondrous Qi Pivot Array Formation, Chen Lingxi’s ears suddenly twitched.

Having reached the Qi Circulation 5th Floor, his five senses were astonishingly sharp.

Within a hundred zhang, the sway of every blade of grass and the chirp of every insect and bird could not escape his perception.

And right now, he heard extremely faint footsteps.

The sound was so subtle that if he hadn’t been fully focused, he would have missed it entirely.

’This is...’ Chen Lingxi raised an eyebrow.Chen Lingxi stood up and walked to the cave entrance. Sensing his master’s movements, Xi Mu, who was guarding the entrance, silently stepped aside to follow him. The two figures quietly slipped onto the mountain path.

They moved swiftly, reaching the mountainside in mere moments.

A grove of dwarf pines stood there, their lush needles hiding his figure completely.

Chen Lingxi hid behind a thick dwarf pine, parted a few needles, and looked down the mountain path.

Right then, the footsteps drew closer.

Around the bend of the mountain path, several wooden poles as thick as a child’s arm appeared first.

Beneath them was a coffin.

The coffin was enormous, over three chi longer and more than two chi wider than an ordinary casket.

But what caught his attention most were the pallbearers.

Eight burly men carried the load.

Shouldering the thick wooden poles, their steps were so perfectly unified they moved like a single entity.

Their breathing was incredibly deep and drawn out. Every inhalation swelled their chests, and every exhalation blew out like a spouting whale, leaving faint trails of white mist in the air. As they walked, a silvery-white radiance faintly seeped from the exposed skin of their necks and the backs of their hands.

’Eight Silver Bones!’

’This coffin is quite strange.’

Chen Lingxi was rather surprised.

A martial artist in the Silver Bone realm was enough to hold an official rank like a battalion commander in the Great Li Army.

Back in the Baosu Marquis Residence, He Duan, the West Courtyard instructor, had only just entered the Silver Bone realm, yet he was already a ranked figure within the manor.

Yet these eight men were being used as mere pallbearers?

His gaze passed over the eight Silver Bone martial artists and landed at the very front of the procession.

Two people rode on horseback at the head of the group.

Both horses were tall and entirely pitch-black, their manes draped like dark silk.

A person sat on each horse. Both wore dark, tight-fitting martial attire with sabers at their waists, their auras deep and heavy as an abyss.

Their faces were completely obscured by bamboo hats. But as they rode, a golden light faintly seeped from deep within their bones. It wasn’t blazing—merely a thin, faint layer hovering over their skin—yet it carried a heaviness that shook the heart.

’Golden Body!’

Two Golden Body figures leading the way, and eight Silver Bone martial artists carrying the coffin.

Just who exactly was inside that coffin?

His curiosity piqued, Chen Lingxi quietly activated the Art of Qi Observation from the Six Qi True Method.

Spiritual qi flowed from his qi sea, surging up his meridians and pouring into his eyes.

In an instant, the mountain forest before him suddenly changed colors.

His gaze, however, locked onto the coffin.

Under the Method of Qi Observation, two streams of spiritual qi were circulating inside that coffin!

Those two streams of spiritual qi were incredibly faint and weak, trembling slightly deep within the wood like the lingering flames of a dying candle.

Chen Lingxi’s breath caught.

He was far too familiar with this method of spiritual qi circulation. Cultivators!

Two cultivators were lying in this coffin!

Frowning slightly, he withdrew the Art of Qi Observation and shifted his gaze back to the coffin itself.

The coffin was carved with complex patterns. Those lines overlapped in layers, connecting with one another to form an incredibly exquisite array formation!

Having studied the diagrams of the Pure Wondrous Qi Pivot Array day and night recently, Chen Lingxi’s understanding of array formations was far beyond what it used to be.

He recognized at a glance that the lines on the coffin were not ordinary casket decorations, but an array designed to seal spiritual qi.

’This is quite interesting.’

The pallbearing procession wound its way up the mountain path and was about to pass the grove of dwarf pines where Chen Lingxi hid.

Chen Lingxi lowered his body even further. The Hidden Edge Method circulated silently within him, making him blend into the mountain forest like a patch of moss growing at the roots of a dwarf pine.

The uniform footsteps of the eight Silver Bone martial artists treaded along the mountain path less than a dozen zhang away from him.

The two Golden Body figures rode past. The snorting of their horses and the sharp clatter of iron hooves striking the mountain rocks rang out as clearly as if they were right beside his ears.

Yet no one noticed him. The procession gradually moved further away, heading down the mountain.

Chen Lingxi emerged from behind the dwarf pine. Frowning slightly, he watched the dark green giant coffin disappear into the depths of the dense forest at the end of the mountain path, still surrounded by the group.

He pondered for a few breaths before finally following them.

Pushing the Hidden Edge Method to its limits, his figure became like an invisible shadow, tailing far behind the procession at a distance of several li.

The procession descended Mount Qiaoji but did not enter Yuanjiang Prefecture City. Instead, they took the official road outside the city and headed west.

The group traveled extremely fast. The two Golden Body figures rode ahead, while the eight Silver Bone martial artists followed closely with the coffin. Their feet flew, and they did not stop to rest once along the way.

Occasional pedestrians by the roadside hastily gave way when they saw the pallbearing procession, not daring to take a second glance.

After they traveled like this for several hours, the sun had already slanted west, its evening glow dyeing the clouds on the horizon a dark gold.

The procession finally came to a halt by a riverbank.

It was a long river. The surface was narrower than the Yuanjiang River but much wider than an ordinary stream. The water was jade-green, shimmering with ripples in the twilight.

’This is... the Xia River?’

Chen Lingxi hid in a patch of reeds on a high slope by the riverbank, gazing at the water from afar. Over the past half year, he had traveled back and forth between Yuanjiang Prefecture and the surrounding mountains, so he was quite familiar with the local geography.

This Xia River originated in the Nanju Twelve Mountains of Lunan Province, winding eastward for over a hundred li before finally merging into the Yuanjiang River.

The procession stopped on a shoal by the banks of the Xia River.

Chen Lingxi drew his gaze back from the river, his pupils contracting slightly.

There was another person on the riverbank.

It was a eunuch.

The eunuch appeared to be in his forties, his skin fair and beardless.

But what truly shocked Chen Lingxi was the aura radiating from this eunuch.

The man stood there, his aura chaotic and obscured, yet bursting with Jade Qi and exceedingly tyrannical.

’A Jade Qi figure?’

Chen Lingxi grew even more curious.

A Jade Qi expert, someone practically impossible to see on a normal day, had just appeared here? At this moment, the pallbearing procession reached the eunuch.

The eunuch lightly raised the fly whisk in his hand. The two Golden Body figures dismounted and bowed respectfully to him.

The eight Silver Bone martial artists slowly lowered the dark green giant coffin from their shoulders, resting it on several logs that had been prepared in advance on the shoal.

The eunuch glanced at the enormous coffin, pointed toward the river, and said in a low voice, ”...The hour has arrived. Sink it.”

The two Golden Body figures acknowledged the order and waved at the eight Silver Bone martial artists. The eight men lifted the giant coffin once more and walked step by step toward the river.

Carried by them, the giant coffin inched closer to the deep, secluded waters in the very center of the river.

Standing on the bank, the eunuch watched the giant coffin being carried into the depths of the river. Suddenly, he reached into his robes and pulled out a compass.

The compass was about the size of a palm, engraved with intricate patterns.

Right in the center of the compass face, faint and incredibly thin streams of light circulated, weaving across the surface like countless tiny swimming fish.

Chen Lingxi’s heart trembled, faintly sensing something.

Over this recent period, he had spent his days and nights comprehending the Pure Wondrous Qi Pivot Array recorded on the bamboo slip. Going from a beginner in the Dao of Arrays to barely being able to lay out the first layer of the formation had already exhausted an untold amount of his mental effort.

Yet even so, he now possessed a superficial understanding of array formations. At this moment, he recognized the compass’s extraordinary nature with a single glance.

’That is... a treasure for laying and controlling arrays. An array core!’

The eunuch tucked his fly whisk into his waistband, pressed a palm against the compass, and then made a pushing motion toward the depths of the river.

A bright light suddenly flared from the compass.

Chen Lingxi held his breath.

He watched as numerous array seals flew out of thin air and plunged into the river.

It continued until the light on the compass gradually dimmed.

The eunuch placed the compass back into his robes, turned around, gave a slight nod to the two Golden Body figures, and murmured something.

Acknowledging his words, the two men mounted their horses and led the eight Silver Bone martial artists back down the official road in the direction they had come.

The eunuch himself mounted a black horse that had appeared on the riverbank at some unknown point. With a flick of the reins, hooves clattered, and he soon vanished into the twilight at the end of the official road.

The riverbank returned to dead silence.

After a long while, Chen Lingxi stepped out from the reed patch. The night had completely fallen, and the surface of the Xia River shimmered with ripples under the light of the cold moon.

He walked to the edge of the river and stood on the pebble-strewn beach.

A moment later, he quietly activated the Art of Qi Observation.

As spiritual qi filled his eyes, the river before him suddenly changed its appearance.

Deep in the water where the coffin had been sunk, intense spiritual qi was actually rising!

That spiritual qi blended seamlessly with the river water itself, so that an ordinary person looking with the naked eye wouldn’t notice anything amiss.

But under the Art of Qi Observation, that section of the river looked like a boiling pill cauldron, churning with dense, swirling spiritual qi.

The spiritual qi surged from the deep riverbed, coiling, condensing, and spreading through the water. It ultimately rose about a zhang above the surface, transforming into an extremely thin and faint mist that drifted slowly in the night wind without dissipating.

Chen Lingxi’s gaze was transfixed.

He stood on the pebble beach, staring blankly at the churning spiritual qi.

After a long time, he suddenly frowned.

”That’s not right...” he muttered to himself. Since acquiring the bamboo slip, although he had only studied it for a few months and his skill in array formations couldn’t be called high, he was at least an initiate.

Yet at this moment, as he stood by the Xia River and used the Art of Qi Observation to closely examine the flow of spiritual energy in the surrounding heaven and earth, he actually faintly sensed an incredibly hidden array node!

The more he looked, the more shocked he became.

He sensed that the terrain of the mountains and rivers and the course of the waterways within an unknown number of li in the surrounding area had been rearranged by some incredibly exquisite method.

Those seemingly ordinary curves of the river channel, the bends in the river, and the rises and falls of the mountain ranges on both banks all secretly aligned with some profoundly deep principle of the Dao of Arrays.

Emperor Daye had widely excavated canals, and those crisscrossing canals were like the intersecting lines on a chessboard.

The newly opened Xia River channel, that giant coffin sunk to the bottom of the river...

Chen Lingxi drew his gaze back from the river, suddenly recalling a line from that manifesto.

”An edict handed down to the provinces, ordering the excavation of canals. Iron shackles clanking, locking the flesh and blood of the common people; leather whips whistling, driving the commoners to the Yellow Springs.”

”Within two years, forty-nine canals! Carving through mountains and filling valleys, destroying the tombs of ten thousand families; breaching dikes and cutting off rivers, ruining the fields and homes of a thousand villages.”

Chen Lingxi’s breathing suddenly grew a bit heavier.

’Canals, eunuchs, arrays...’ An utterly absurd yet faintly explanatory guess suddenly formed in his mind.

Emperor Daye.

Emperor Daye had ascended the throne over thirty years ago. Back then, Xiao Changlv had not yet raised his rebellion, and the world had not yet fallen into chaos.

Until he began the massive excavation of canals.

Veteran court officials had remonstrated with him under threat of death, yet he ignored them all.

Even later, when rebel kings rose up everywhere, this Emperor Daye was still recklessly excavating new river channels at any cost, not hesitating to hollow out the national treasury, shake the foundation of the state, or drive tens of millions of commoners to their deaths.

Why?

’Are these canals, mountains, rivers, and seas... all part of an array?’

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing the stale air that had surged up his chest.

’Just who exactly... is this Emperor Daye?’