Pursuit of the Truth

As if a hammer had struck his soul, Su Ming staggered a few steps back. With a dismal expression on his face, three scenes rapidly flashed in his head!

The first scene was of when he saw Bei Ling and Lei Chen [1] on the Chains of Han Mountain in Han Mountain City and the one sentence he had heard at that time.

”You died. I buried you with my own hands…”

This scene disappeared in an instant and was replaced by the moment Hong Luo was disappearing. Su Ming stood on the coffin on the mountain in the land of the Shamans, and right at the instant he touched the coffin, he was plunged into a memory of darkness that felt like a dream.

”There were two babies at that time… She was the one alive, and I was the one dead…”

Soon after, all of these scenes shattered and Di Tian’s body occupied all of his memories. That one aloof word echoed repeatedly in Su Ming’s mind… and did not disappear even after a long time.

”Destiny!”

Su Ming stood there and looked at the old man in yellow robes, then at the world behind him. After a long while, he asked, burdened with anguish.

”Am I… dead?”

”Perhaps, perhaps not.” The old man in yellow robes cast Su Ming a glance and shook his head.

”What do you mean?” Su Ming remained silent for a moment before he asked. He did not find it in himself to be unable to accept what the old man said. In truth, he had already discovered some clues about this many years ago, but he had simply been unable to piece the information together.

”There is a binary opposite that exists in the world. If we say that one side of the binary opposite is being alive, then we can say that the other side of the binary opposite is being dead… but what exactly is death and what exactly is meant by the other side? Who can really say clearly?

”Perhaps we can look at the boundary between these two sides as a mirror. When a person standing outside the mirror looks into the mirror, the person inside the mirror is also looking outside. He will see himself, but at the same time, he might also not be looking at himself.

”Do you understand?” the old man in yellow robes asked.

Su Ming frowned. After some time, he looked towards the world in the distance.

”Do you mean that the people in mirrors have their own lives, and the people outside the mirrors don’t know about it, and that you and I are in these mirrors?”

”Your comprehensive abilities aren’t too shabby. As the person who is regarded highly by Lie Shan Xiu, you must definitely have something outstanding about you… My home, the True Sacred Yin World, has been examining this binary opposite along with Yin and Yang since a long time ago. The results we obtained are that the universe contains this binary opposite as well!

”We call one side of this binary opposite as Yin Death Void, and the other side as Bright Yang Emptiness[2].” When the old man in yellow robes spoke up to that point, he suddenly stopped speaking and no longer continued. A smile appeared on his lips instead.

Su Ming remained silent, then lifted his right hand and looked at the strand of hair on his finger. After some time, a resolute look appeared on his face.

”How do I help your people return home?”

”This place is created from my people’s Enchanted Vessel. It was damaged when the it was weaving through universes, but the spirit of this World, which is the soul of this Enchanted Vessel, is not dead. It is simply deep in slumber!

”It needs a sufficient amount of power to wake up, and only when it wakes up can we reactivate this Enchanted Vessel and return to the True Sacred Yin World based on the path it took all those years ago!

”Over the years, we have gathered quite a large number of materials, but it’s still not enough. That’s why we worked with the Shamans. That’s why we need that Earthen Aura dragon’s soul!

”You only need to transfer Lie Shan Xiu’s power into the Rune, and you will have done a great favor to us. With Lie Shan Xiu’s power, I have a seven tenth certainty that I will be able to make this World Spirit wake up in a short period of time!

”Once the World Spirit wakes up and we reestablish our connection with the World Spirit, we… will be able to go home!” The old man in yellow robes looked rather excited. Once he calmed himself down, he looked towards Su Ming with sincerity shining on his face.

”When the World Spirit wakes up, I will open a Relocation Rune within this Enchanted Vessel. We might not be able to use this Rune too many times due to the power of the Enchanted Vessel, but I can send you and your tribesmen away from this place, return you to your own world!

”I will also tell you the connection between Yin Death Void and Bright Yang Emptiness at that time. I hope it will be of help to you…

”And if you want to see the world as it really is, if you are courageous enough to take the risk, then you can be the last to use the Rune to leave. At that time, you will be able to see the universe and the heavens…” When the old man in yellow robes said these words, he took a few steps back, wrapped his fist in his palm towards Su Ming, and took a deep bow.

”Every single word I’ve said is true. I hope that you will help us. If the day comes that you are able to leave True Morning Dao World and head to True Sacred Yin World, you can search for Sacred Spirit Continent. That is where we Spirits of Nine Yin are. I hope that we will be able to meet each other in True Sacred Yin World someday!”

Su Ming remained silent as he looked at the old man before him. He nodded his head.

Everything the old man said felt like a dream to Su Ming, but when he connected those words to his own assumptions, he found that the old man was perhaps not speaking nonsense.

Yet no matter what, Su Ming would still agree to this to obtain the answer for the question in his heart. Even if the old man had lied about everything, even if all of this was fake, Su Ming still chose to believe that what the old man said was true.

When he saw him nodding, the old man in yellow robes let out a breath of relief. With a wave of his arm, the palace in the mountain where he was immediately started twisting and distorting before it gradually disappeared. The eight gigantic statues inside also disappeared, as if everything had just been an illusion. Only a gigantic Rune was left behind on the ground where the crimson dragon had been before!

”Please transfer Lie Shan Xiu’s power into the Rune!” The old man wrapped his fist in his palm and bowed once again.

In silence, Su Ming walked towards the Rune slowly. When he stood within it, his gaze fell on it. After a long while, he lifted his right hand swiftly, and a strong ray of light instantly burst forth from the strand of hair on his finger, along with a mighty and imposing presence that surged to the skies.

That presence echoed in the air and caused the sky to rumble, the space all around them to seem as if it could not bear with that pressure, and signs of space being torn to start showing. Almost the instant Su Ming’s finger came down, he suddenly turned his head around, and swift as lightning, his gaze landed on the yellow-robed old man’s face.

He saw excitement, melancholy, nostalgia, and the yearning for home.

”I’ll believe you this once!”

Su Ming’s right hand was brought down swiftly, and the instant he tapped the Rune, the strand of hair on his finger started burning rapidly. A large wave of power that was simply unimaginable burst forth, and it all surged into the Rune.

At the same time, the mountain where Su Ming stood at the moment started cracking and breaking apart, inch by inch, turning into dust, but the Rune remained. It floated in midair, and the light on it started becoming brighter!

Soon after, all the palaces in the disappeared mountain vanished into thin air in an instant. All of them turned into dust and ashes, and those statues fell to the side to become one with the ground, as if a gust of wind that aimed to vanquish everything had swept past them.

When that windstorm was over and the light from the Rune became so bright that it was piercing to the eyes, there were no longer any mountains or palaces in the area, and there were also only ten of the statues that were transformed from the Spirits of Nine Yin!

These ten statues were all broken and tattered. They gave off a declining, ancient air, as if they had lived through a countless number of years.

The Rune in midair was becoming brighter with each passing moment and eventually turned into a pillar of light that was so bright that it pierced the eyes. That light erupted forth from the Rune and charged straight towards the end of the sky.

The instant the pillar of light shot into the sky, another one shot into the clouds from the distant land. Soon after, pillars of light started appearing one by one without stop in the boundless World of Nine Yin.

Su Ming might not be able to see all of them, but he could sense the world shaking!

There was only a little left of the strand of hair on his finger. When the pillar of light erupted, his body was bounced off by a great power, and he was forced back several thousands of feet. His face turned pale, and he coughed out a mouthful of blood. He looked around him dumbly, and saw the vanishing palaces and the disappearing statues. All of this felt incredibly real to him, which also meant that whatever the old man told him just now was indeed not fake.

”We will remember your kindness!” With an excited look on his face, the old man in yellow robes wrapped his fist in his palm towards Su Ming, then charged straight into the pillar of light in the Rune.

”We will continue activating the Rune, and with all my strength, I will call upon the World Spirit to wake up. If I am quick, it’ll take half a month, and if I am slow, then it’ll take a month. The World of Nine Yin will be overturned by then, so please gather your tribesmen quickly, our lord benefactor. When the World Spirit wakes up, I will open the passage for all of you!”

Su Ming watched the old man in yellow robes disappear into the pillar of light, and after remaining silent for a moment, he gave up thinking about turning into Destiny once again without care for everything. A melancholic expression appeared on his face instead.

This was the final move he had in case any accidents happened. If everything that the old man had said been false, then Su Ming could use the span of fifteen breaths and revert things slightly.

However… it did not matter whether it was the drastic change around him or the yellow-robed old man’s actions, all of them were proof that the person bore no ill will. Based on that alone, the believability of his words had almost reached the level where he was absolutely telling the truth!

This was what Su Ming wanted to know desperately, but also something that he did not want to face.

In silence, he put away his crimson dragon, causing it to turn into a picture on his left arm once again. The dragon had spent too much of its energy and had entered into deep slumber. Su Ming did not know when it would wake up again.

With the Poison Corpse and the small snake, he turned around and headed towards the Fated Kin’s valley.

His back looked incredibly desolate, and there was an air of lonely befuddlement about him. Gradually, he left into the distance. Behind him was a pillar of light that surged into the skies. The ground under his feet shook, and the clouds tumbled about in the sky above his head. All of this signified that a change turning the world upside down was happening right at that moment.

”Half a month… A month… I will obtain all of these answers the instant I leave this place,” Su Ming mumbled under his breath. A determined light gradually shone in his eyes. It did not matter what sort of answer he would obtain, he would still walk down his path.

It did not matter what that answer signified. Su Ming simply believed that he should know all these things!

His body disappeared into the distance. As he walked in the sky, he spread out his divine sense far and wide. When he saw the ruins of Shaman City in his divine sense, he saw a wandering soul drifting about in the ruins. It was Ahu’s soul.

There was also a group of invisible Drifting Roamers wandering about outside the ruins of Shaman City, and among them was a woman that Su Ming was familiar with.

‘Did… she not leave all those years ago..?’ His footsteps came to a halt as he walked in midair, and he turned around and looked in the direction where the woman was in his divine sense.

Translator’s Notes:

1. Bei Ling and Lei Chen: Su Ming’s childhood friends. Bei Ling taught Su Ming how to use the bow when he was younger, grew to resent him later, but during the migration, they reconciled. Lei Chen is Su Ming’s best friend.

2. Yin Death Void (陰死之虛, yin1 si3 zhi1 xu1) and Bright Yang Emptiness (皓陽之空, hao4 yang2 zhi1 kong1): This is a concept the Spirits of Nine Yin came up with, as you can tell.

Since these two words exist as a binary opposite, I thought it was only logical to assume that the words 陰 and 陽 were translated based on what was already officially given and accepted, which in itself is already a binary opposite, which is Yin and Yang, which also means negative-positive/life-death.

Next is 死 and 皓. 死 means death, and 皓 means illustrious/brightness/white/vast. Now, given that black and darkness is commonly associated with death, and life filled with vibrant colors, these two words were translated as Death and Bright respectively.

Finally, we have 虛 and 空. These two are not binary opposites, however. 虛 means void, and 空 means emptiness/sky, but 空 is only used as sky when it is written as 天空. So, both sides of the binary opposite are talking about emptiness, though one refers to life, and the other death.

Which is why we have 陰死之虛 → Yin Death Void, and 皓陽之空 → Bright Yang Emptiness.

Yin Death Aura, if you recall from chapter 499, is derived from Yin Death Void, hence the name.