Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 237: The Gaze

Hu Chaohui dreamed once more of that vast, azure, yet violent sea.

His ship was tossed high by massive waves and dropped into ”deep valleys,” nearly capsizing many times, yet it held on, and was finally pushed by a sudden storm onto a desolate island.

While searching for suitable firewood, Hu Chaohui and his companion stumbled upon a cave dwelling.

He vaguely found the place familiar, as if he had been here before, and that it would become the nexus for changing his fate.

Glancing at the companion beside him, Hu Chaohui let a murderous gleam faintly show in his eyes.

Inside the cave dwelling were flower beds, orchards, ponds, and spirit fields, all withered and ruined, with no such thing as immortal herbs or divine fruits.

Hu Chaohui and his companion passed through the area and reached the inner sanctum.

The first thing to meet his eyes was a great hall whose two sides were covered in murals. Straight ahead stood a white jade platform holding a book made of animal hide.

Paying no mind to the murals, Hu Chaohui went straight to the jade platform and picked up the volume.

Its cover bore ancient bronze script that he could not read a single character of. The contents were the same.

That’s wrong. I clearly made my way to the Flame Capital and studied bronze script for a very long time... As the thought arose, Hu Chaohui suddenly understood the book: ”Essentials of Heaven’s Decrees”

He turned the pages slowly, one after another, as if memorizing, yet not truly memorizing.

After an unknown length of time, he exhaled, and seemed to hear someone say in his mind.

”Finally memorized.”

Only then did Hu Chaohui examine the murals on both sides. To his astonishment, every picture was in fact a manifestation of aperture-refining visualization and qi circulation to concentrate the spirit, and with each picture he looked at, many apertures in his body throbbed in response.

The martial arts hidden in the murals shared a source with the Essentials of Heaven’s Decrees, or rather encompassed it. As Hu Chaohui looked, he began, inexplicably, to practice it.

Gradually, he felt himself become one with the entire sea. With a gesture he could raise storms and roll up raging waves, borrow vast and mighty power, and decide the life and death of all things in the Southern Sea.

”The Glazed Sea-Wielding Art...” A name suddenly surfaced in Hu Chaohui’s mind.

Had he known the cave’s murals hid an even more profound art, after mastering bronze script he would not have stayed in the Flame Capital. He would have returned to South Province and sailed the seas. Though he could not become a true sea god, he could have been a local snake posing as a true dragon, near-celestial so long as he never left the Southern Sea, a lord of his own domain.

With that, what ending would he have had to worry about?

In his vexation, Hu Chaohui looked at the last mural.

A human-faced deity with two cyan snakes hanging from his ears and two red snakes underfoot stood amid towering waves, raising a long halberd and roaring in fury. Above him, beyond layers of clouds, a figure loomed indistinctly, wearing a tall crown, his face veiled by hanging beads, seated at the center and holding up the six directions.

Hu Chaohui’s mind went blank for a moment.

He suddenly remembered something.

Didn’t I have a companion?

Didn’t the two of us enter the cave dwelling together?

Just as he thought this, he found a figure standing before him.

The figure wore a gray robe, hands clasped behind his back, and a Jade Maiden mask painted with peach-blossom rouge. Drawing the qi of heaven and earth into himself, he was tall, majestic, vast, and remote, looking down on all directions.

In bearing, he resembled quite closely the figure high in the mural, as if the present world and the painting had overlapped.

”Di Hong...” Hu Chaohui finally spoke that name.

Di Hong was Emperor Xuanyuan.

This was recorded in the bronze script of the Essentials of Heaven’s Decrees.

Hu Chaohui’s mind and spirit were both shaken. The entire cave dwelling and the whole world abruptly trembled and cracked inch by inch.

His dream was about to collapse.

Ding Songyan had been gazing intently at that mural. He did not know when he had revealed his form and startled Hu Chaohui.

In the next instant, he noticed that the figure above Buting Huyu’s head, high in the layered heavens, had changed inexplicably. The hanging beads swayed almost imperceptibly, and the face they concealed faintly looked down toward the lower realm.

Ding Songyan’s hair stood on end at once. He felt a gaze like solid matter fall from on high, pierce the dream, and land upon him.

No, it came not just from on high, but from beneath the Nine Springs, from the Eight Wildernesses and Six Directions, from every place!

Silently, Hu Chaohui’s dream shattered, and Ding Songyan’s spirit snapped back into his own body.

He abruptly opened his eyes and found the qi of heaven and earth in chaos: wind and rain intermingled, the moon bright and stars sparse, earth heat surging up, and ice scattering.

The underworld, shrouded in smoke-like darkness, also appeared before his eyes.

Through the Chaos Realm, he naturally reflected his current appearance:

His face was dim and blurred as if veiled in black gauze, his skin distinctly yellowish, his six legs nearly invisible, and the wings of the four seasons each a different color.

He had fully displayed a Chaos Grandmaster’s physical anomalies.

His yin eyes had also opened inexplicably.

...

Somewhere in the Flame Capital.

Ji Hanyi, in a white dress and practicing delicate hairpin-flower regular script with a brush, suddenly retreated at speed, and layer upon layer of invisible barriers appeared before her.

It was as though in the space of a breath she had escaped beyond layers of heaven and earth, no longer within this realm.

Yet the inexplicable gaze met no obstruction, passing through the Three Realms and all directions, crossing the Eight Wildernesses and Six Directions, and landing upon her.

The qi of the void suddenly boiled, stirring the entire heaven and earth.

The gaze vanished in an instant, and Ji Hanyi stopped.

The hem of her skirt lifted slightly, and everything quickly calmed.

”What has my good Second Brother stirred up this time? He certainly knows how to give people surprises...” the peerlessly beautiful woman murmured, half pleased, half piqued.

...

In a quiet room somewhere in the Phoenix Terrace Study.

A man in a loose long robe and a tall crown sat cross-legged. His brows were like sharp swords flying into his temples, his eyes like blooming peach blossoms with pupils like gathered deep pools, his nose high and heroic, his jawline smooth, his features sharply defined. He was a rare handsome man.

The man turned his head toward the window and let out a faint ”Oh?”

The qi of heaven and earth in the Flame Capital had changed inexplicably.

...

Tiger Tail Alley, the back courtyard of the cheap wine shop.

Twelfth Madam Luo was reading by lamplight while writing down her insights with a brush, her handwriting handsome yet dignified.

Suddenly, her brush pressed a little too hard, and she looked up toward the door.

After a moment, Twelfth Madam Luo murmured, almost soundlessly, ”Related to the Celestial Thearch?”

...

At that moment, who knew how many people across the Flame Capital softly exclaimed, and how many fell into thought.

Ding Songyan could vaguely guess why, but he had no time to spare. He quickly closed his yin eyes and manifested the Treatise on Sharing the Shadows of the World to hide the Chaos anomalies.

Then, while using Bringing All Things Into Unity to erase traces and qi, he slipped out of the Liu residence.

Along the way he met raging wind and rain, early winter snow, and a bright moon high overhead, as if the four seasons had fallen into disorder.

It took the time for a full cup of tea before the anomaly vanished, which also freed Ding Songyan from any danger of being discovered.

He fled all the way into a side courtyard of Prince Kang’s estate, sighed in relief, and went over what he had just experienced.

”Was that... the Celestial Thearch’s gaze?” The more Ding Songyan thought about it, the more terrified he became.

Though he had never witnessed the might of a Sage, he did not think anyone after heaven-earth severance could produce such terror, which was worse than even the Nine Feng’s remnant soul wandering the underworld.

”The Celestial Thearch still exists?

”He cast his gaze from the Heavenly Realm?

”But why would He allow Yan Changqing into the Kunlun Palace to take part of the Chaos remains?

”What does His gaze mean?

”I even thought I would face heavenly tribulation and divine punishment...

”Worthy of the Celestial Thearch. What I saw in the dream was a figure in a mural in Hu Chaohui’s memory, separated from me by who knows how many layers, and it could still resonate with my Chaos essence and form a connection...

”That gaze just now didn’t seem aimed at me alone. Heh heh, my good sister is in the Flame Capital too. She ate most of the Chaos, so she should have shared the burden for me...

”That way, there are two sources of disorder in the qi of heaven and earth, and they affect each other, changing a whole region. Even if the Martial Prohibition Bureau calls in a Supreme Master, they probably won’t find anything and won’t be able to pin it down to Brother Liu’s home.

”Damn it, I could sense that the gaze also fell on Little Sister. She can easily guess I’m behind this. I wonder if she’ll be angry, and what she’ll do afterward...”

Instinctively, Ding Songyan raised a hand and rubbed his temple, pondering how to deal with his good sister, who might come to hold him to account.

He also vaguely understood that ”eating Chaos together and sharing yin and yang between them” might be true. As for the rest, perhaps his sister had embellished, casually bluffing to scare him.

Thinking these things through, Ding Songyan’s mood gradually settled.

He turned to examine his own condition.

Since he had not dropped dead on the spot, the Celestial Thearch evidently did not care about an ant like him. Or perhaps, to maintain heaven-earth severance, He could not conveniently act, and the crisis to himself was not imminent and need not be considered for the time being.

Ding Songyan currently lacked enough information to deduce more, so he could only focus on himself.

Soon, he confirmed two things.

First, he could now sense all of his remaining exterior apertures. Second, his yin eyes could open at his own will without needing the Celestial Heart imprint to trigger them, and so could spirit channeling.

”Did that one glance from the Celestial Thearch stimulate my spirit and shake my soul, bringing this change?” Ding Songyan closed his eyes, ran Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi, and quickly condensed the two newly controlled exterior apertures.

Only Returning Abyss remained before he perfected the Dharma Realm of Chaos martial arts.

Phew... Ding Songyan exhaled, letting the contents of the Essentials of Heaven’s Decrees gradually surface in his mind.

He could not help blaming Hu Chaohui.

Back then, this guy lacked insight, didn’t study the murals carefully, and didn’t remember everything. Because of him, I can’t master that Glazed Sea-Wielding Art. I can only see whether I’ll ever find the cave dwelling Buting Huyu left behind.

As for the Essentials of Heaven’s Decrees, Ding Songyan had no intention of spending lifespan to cultivate it.

This martial art was actually somewhat like the Celestial Heart state. Both could affect the qi of heaven and earth in the surrounding area, but it could not clearly sense the presence or changes of that qi.

Ding Songyan planned to use the Essentials of Heaven’s Decrees as a foundation, reference the Celestial Heart imprint, and extrapolate the changes of the former, trying to improve it and, if possible, create his own secret art or directly usable martial art of ”sensing heaven’s will and executing heaven’s decrees.” A false Celestial Heart would replace the true one and reduce his reliance on the Celestial Heart imprint.

An external object like the Celestial Heart imprint would have to be abandoned sooner or later.