Chapter 446

Three years later on that morning, Wang Ping stood beneath the Jianmu, his hand pressed against the trunk.

His hand was steadier than before—his knuckles no longer trembled slightly when touching the bark, his palm pressed against the rough longitudinal fissures, and he could feel the extremely slow wriggling of the phloem beneath the bark.

The Jianmu had grown another half-palm thicker this year, and each time he came he had to readjust the angle at which his palm made contact.

The fissures in the bark were deeper than three years ago, the deepest one running from waist-height on the trunk all the way up to beneath the branches, the raised scabs along the fissure's edges worn smooth by his repeated rubbing.

His cultivation had recovered to the mid-stage of Nascent Soul. Not by relying on pills—the Nascent Soul Pill given by Xuanyan Daozun he had taken only that one, and afterward he had not taken any further breakthrough pills.

Not by relying on opportunity—opportunity falls from heaven, and these three years he had not gone out seeking any secret realm or any ruins. It was by relying on time—retracing the path he had walked, retasting the bitterness he had endured, re-contemplating the Dao he had comprehended.

From the ten steps beside the quiet chamber's bed, to the nine hundred steps of the rear mountain stone stairs, to every page of the Foundation Establishment classics he had flipped through before the bookshelves of the Sutra Pavilion. Slow, but steady—slow to the point that every minor realm's bottleneck was dissolved by himself, steady to the point that his Dao foundation at mid-Nascent Soul was more solid than it had been after his previous late-Nascent Soul breakthrough.

The leaves of the Jianmu swayed gently in the wind. Not the large swaying blown by a strong wind, but the morning-specific breeze, with wind speed just enough to let the leaf edges touch each other. Sha-sha-sha.

That sound was very much like someone speaking—not any specific language, but a "sense of speech," the feeling of words on the verge of being spoken, first adjusting the rhythm with breath. It was asking—Are you ready? He did not answer, because he did not know.

What he did know was another matter: he ought to leave. The rotation speed of the Chaos Divine Stele within his body was slower than three years ago, not because recovery was poor, but because it was "conserving effort"—it used every bit of energy to maintain the lowest-level life traces of the stele spirit, like a hibernating beast pressing its heartbeat to the lowest. For three years, the stele spirit's eyes had never opened.

Wang Ping nourished it daily with chaotic power. Not by "infusing"—infusing is forced injection, which would damage its already fragile legal structure. It was by "seeping"—adjusting his chaotic spiritual power into extremely fine and slow threads, drawing them out from the dantian spiritual sea, rushing them along the meridians to the chest, and then seeping from the chest into the divine stele.

Each day he seeped only a single thread, and a single thread required a full hour to seep through. Like adding oil to an oil-less lamp—drop by drop—the wick still there, the lamp still there, but the oil exhausted. He added oil drop by drop, the oil soaked into the wick's base, the wick drew the oil upward, but only condensed into an extremely fine and bright tiny oil bead at the wick's tip. The lamp did not light.

Not because the oil was bad—he used his own reformed chaotic primordial spiritual power, purer than the spiritual power he had after his previous late-Nascent Soul breakthrough. It was because the wick had burned out—the stele spirit's spiritual awareness had been frayed to the edge of rupture in that sword, not due to insufficient spiritual power, but because the spiritual awareness itself needed to regrow new connections from the point of fracture. He needed a new wick.

The new wick was in the Immortal Realm Fragments. Not a metaphor—the stele spirit's spiritual awareness was extracted by the Chaos Immortal Venerable from the core laws of the Immortal Realm Fragments, and its root still remained deep within those fragments. The Immortal Realm Fragments contained traces left behind by the Chaos Immortal Venerable.

Those unexplored chambers, those steles sealed in thirty thousand years of silence, those original inscriptions carved into the altar bases. Last time he went, he was at early Nascent Soul, leading a complete team, targeting the Chaos Divine Stele itself. This time he was going deeper—not to take treasure, but to repair the stele. He had to go.

Cangxuan came to see him off. He stood beneath the Jianmu, three steps away from Wang Ping—that was his sword-step distance, not vigilance, but habit.

The newly recruited disciples of the Heavenly Sword Sect were still waiting for him to teach, he had just come down from morning class, his robe still stained with dew splashed from the martial arena's stone slabs.

The sword in its scabbard made no sound. Not silence, but "no need to sound"—what needed to be said had already been said the night before. Last night Cangxuan had sat in the quiet chamber for a while, said nothing, and merely placed a sword talisman on the table before leaving.

The sword talisman sealed a strand of Immortal-Slaying Sword Intent, not for killing enemies, but for sending word—crush it, and Cangxuan's sword heart would be able to sense it anywhere in the myriad heavens.

He gazed at Wang Ping for a long time, long enough for the light spots filtered through the Jianmu canopy to shift from his left shoulder to his right. Then he spoke.

"Alone?"

Wang Ping nodded. Cangxuan did not say "I will accompany you." His Dao lay in the Spirit Realm—the Heavenly Sword Sect needed him, and if he left those disciples would have no one to teach the heart method of Immortal-Slaying Sword Intent, the broken sword brought back from the Order Holy Hall in the sword tomb awaited his personal reforging. He could not leave.

This was a reason, but not the whole reason—more importantly, he believed Wang Ping did not need his accompaniment. His fingers tapped lightly on the hilt—not with the fingertip pad, but with the thumb hooking the index finger, using the index fingernail to flick against the sword guard, causing the sword in its scabbard to ring once, short and bright—just as before in the passage, just as on the ruins of the Holy Hall. Saying—Come back alive.

Yuliuli stood in the distance holding her guqin. Not beside Cangxuan, but beside the newly opened arbor of morning glories on the east side of the Jianmu.

Her strings had been changed—the last spare string brought from the Fallen Immigrant Clan's holy land had snapped in the Holy Hall ruins, after the battle her master sent her a dream in which he said "There are still seven strings in the interlayer of the old qin case."

After waking she opened her master's old qin case left behind, lifted the velvet cloth laid at the very bottom, and indeed found an extremely thin interlayer, inside which seven strands of immortal silkworm silk were wrapped in silk gauze.

Her master had not deceived her—immortal silkworm silk truly does not break, unless directly struck by the pressure of the Order Lord. She replaced the strings, all seven now present.

She plucked once, the feather string. This time not a sound check, but the "beginning"—the first note of the Fallen Immigrant Clan's farewell melody, starting from the feather string, moving up to the palace string, then returning to the feather string.

The qin tone echoed beneath the Jianmu, very soft, very fine, like wind blowing through a bamboo grove. Not a bamboo grove—the Spirit Realm has no bamboo groves, but her qin heart knows what a bamboo grove looks like, she once read in ancient texts that there is a plant called bamboo in the mundane world, and when wind passes through a bamboo grove each bamboo leaf emits a faint whistle, the whistles of myriad leaves combining into a symphony without a conductor.

She was playing a tune without a name, a farewell piece. Improvised last night, after finishing she did not notate it, because farewell tunes need no notation—once notated they become reproducible tunes, and the next time she bids farewell to someone she could play it again. She did not want to play it a second time.

Her fingers moved slowly on the strings, each note drawn out very long—her left hand rubbed the string to produce an extremely fine vibrato, the vibrato drawn out until nearly vanishing before her right hand plucked the next note. As if unwilling to let the sound end.

From the feather string to the palace string, from the palace string back to the feather string, the final note landed on the horn string—the horn string is the string of vitality, the last note of the Fallen Immigrant Clan's farewell melody always falls on the horn string, meaning not "farewell," but "come back alive." The note still ended, her fingers lingered long on the horn string, then lifted, and she looked at Wang Ping.

"Jiu'er has awakened, I will send you a message." The Fallen Immigrant Clan has a method of transmitting messages via qin tone—qin cultivators with strong qin hearts can compress qin tone into extremely fine legal undulations, spreading along the Jianmu's root system throughout the myriad worlds. These years she has been practicing this precisely for today's use.

Wang Ping nodded. He glanced at the Jianmu trunk—Jiu'er's face was still there, the trunk had thickened another ring this year, the bark wrapped her features more tightly, her brow ridge clearer than three years ago, the contour of her nose bridge more three-dimensional than three years ago, like a painting being refined stroke by stroke. Eyes closed, a hint of smile at the corner of her mouth. Not a smile—but "peace of mind": Elder Brother is no longer at war, Elder Brother stands beneath the tree speaking to her, Elder Brother has not wandered far. He gazed for a long time, long enough for the dew on the morning glory vines to roll from the petal edges and drip onto the grass blades at his feet. Then he turned and walked toward the passage.

The passage was inside the Jianmu trunk. Not carved out, but grown. Three years ago Jiu'er used her own body to become light, activating the Jianmu's life imprint, opening that passage leading to the Order Holy Hall. Later the passage disappeared together with the closing of the stone gate. But the root system did not disappear—the Jianmu's roots in the Spirit Realm's earth veins had lain dormant for three years, silently extending from the Spirit Realm's earth veins toward Gui Xu, passing through Gui Xu's boundless realm of deathly stillness, reaching the coordinates where the Immortal Realm Fragments lie, then plunging deeper into the altar base where the Chaos Divine Stele once slumbered. The root network had quietly covered the entire route from the Spirit Realm to the Immortal Realm Fragments these three years, waiting for this day.

The passage's entrance was on the trunk. Not a split tree hole, not a glowing teleportation gate, but the tree bark itself—when Wang Ping pressed his hand against the trunk, the bark beneath his hand began to warm slightly, then from within exuded an extremely faint chaotic-colored light. The light seeped out from the bark's fissures, forming around his palm an outline just large enough for one person to pass through. He withdrew his hand, the outline remained. He stepped inside. The instant his foot stepped in, it was not stepping into emptiness, but onto wood—the passage's inner wall was an arched structure woven from Jianmu roots, each root as thick as an arm, surface covered with Jianmu-specific grayish-brown bast fibers, the fibers still bearing extremely fine soil particles. There were growth rings—not the concentric rings of the trunk, but extremely fine and dense concentric patterns on the root's cross-section, each ring representing a season of root extension in the void. Ring upon ring, dense and packed.

Wang Ping walked in, his foot stepping on the roots, the roots emitted a creaking creaking sound beneath his feet. Not the sound of wood about to break—the Jianmu's roots will not break, this is the faint sound of dried bast fibers on the root surface rubbing against each other when stepped on. Like the floorboards of an old house, smoothed and brightened by centuries of tread, stepping on them produces a faint muffled sound, not noise, but "presence"—the house telling you, I am still here, you are still here. He walked very slowly, not because the passage was hard to walk, but because he was listening. Listening to the Jianmu's heartbeat—the heartbeat sound traveled from the roots under his feet upward, through the soles, through the foot bones, to his tibia, from the tibia to the spine, from the spine to the cochlea. Not heard with ears, but heard with bones. The Jianmu's heartbeat remained as slow as one beat per incense stick, but compared to three years ago it was deeper, each beat pressing more sap deep into the wood. It was gathering strength in its great slumber, having stored for three years, awaiting Jiu'er's awakening. Listening to Jiu'er's breath—the breath sound was extremely light and slow, the interval between exhalation and inhalation as long as a person engaged in the deepest meditation. She was coiled in the energy sea at the deepest part of the Jianmu root system, her heartbeat still one beat per minute, each beat followed by an extremely fine micro-tremor, that being the echo of the heart valves closing after pumping blood out. He also listened to the Spirit Realm's sounds, growing fainter behind him—Cangxuan's sword lightly rubbing the scabbard mouth, that was his sword hilt touching when he turned; Yuliuli's qin bridge blown extremely lightly in the wind, turning a tiny circle, that was the qin self-tuning; the morning glory vines blown by the wind sliding a little down the trunk, leaves scraping the bark producing an extremely fine rustling sound. He heard them, he gathered these sounds one by one into the depths of his cochlea. Then he walked forward.

The passage was not long. From the Spirit Realm to the edge of Gui Xu, the Jianmu's root system needed only to extend a short distance. But he had walked a long time, because with each step he paused to wait—wait to confirm this step was solid, wait for the creaking of this root segment to fully sink into the root network beneath his feet, wait for the Spirit Realm's sounds behind him in his cochlea to shift from clear to memory. When he emerged from the passage, his foot stepped onto different ground. Not wood, but "nothing"—the void of Gui Xu, laws so thin as to nearly lack boundaries. He looked back, the passage's mouth behind him had shrunk—not collapsed, but drawn together. Like a person closing their eyes, the arched structure woven from Jianmu roots began from the edges, each root retracting toward the center, each root emitting an extremely fine and light rustling sound as it withdrew, like a mother drawing back her outstretched arms. Finally, nothing remained—behind him only darkness remained, within the darkness a tiny point of light, that was the residual chaotic-colored fluorescence from the tips of the Jianmu roots. It flashed once, then went out. He turned around, facing Gui Xu.

Gui Xu remained as it was. Darkness—not pitch black, but that kind of "space black" where no light can reflect. Deathly silence—not absence of sound, but "sound has no medium here." Boundlessness—not so large as to lack edges, but the concept of "boundary" does not hold here. But Wang Ping was different. When he first came he was at early Nascent Soul, accompanied by Cangxuan, Yuliuli, and Youying, four people crowded together, he in front, Cangxuan behind with hand on sword hilt, Yuliuli holding her qin, Youying walking in his shadow. Back then they feared getting separated, using divine sense to lock each other's qi, checking numbers after each stretch of road. Now he was alone, mid-Nascent Soul, walking solo. He felt no fear, for he had already walked this road once. Muscle remembers the path—muscle memory lasts longer than memory. The heart too—what the heart remembers is not a map, but a "sense": the first time he came, in this darkness he first experienced true loneliness, not from lack of companions nearby, but from Gui Xu telling every entrant—you are superfluous.

The Immortal Realm Fragments lay deep within Gui Xu. He had walked a long time, perhaps days, perhaps months. Gui Xu has no sunrise or sunset, no hourglass, nothing usable for timing. His heartbeat was the only still-moving clock—beating several dozen times per minute, each minute counting. But he had not deliberately counted, for he did not care about time. Here time meant nothing—Gui Xu's laws do not support the arrow of time, causality here can occur out of order, the past can arrive later than the future. His steps were steady, each step planted firmly. In the void there is no ground—void is "nothing," nothing cannot bear weight—but beneath his feet there was. His Dao was his ground. After reforging, his Dao foundation was denser than before, he had shifted his Dao from "pursuit" to "being," now he was here, therefore here there was ground.

When the Immortal Realm Fragments appeared before him, he stopped. Not because it suddenly appeared—in Gui Xu, distance is not visual judgment, but legal perception. His chaotic divine sense first touched the legal remnants around the fragments' exterior, that being the unique aura of the immortal palace ruins: remnants of immortal spirit, fragments of ancient immortal patterns, plus the legal traces left by the Chaos Divine Stele slumbering here for thirty thousand years. Only then did he "see" it—in the darkness a continental outline emerged, vast to the point of being impossible to visually estimate its full extent.

The land was still that land, stretching millions of li. The mountains and rivers were still those mountains and rivers, the mountain range extending from east to west, its main ridge having been shaved of its peaks by ancient battles, leaving only a gentle and broken ridge line. The plains were still that plain, withered grass covering the wild, the grass leaves motionless in the void. The river valleys were still dry—riverbed waters had evaporated thirty thousand years ago, leaving only cracked mud on the riverbed. The basin was still that basin, the immortal palace ruins sitting at its center. But it was different. He could not say exactly how, but it was different. Not a change in appearance, but a change in "presence"—last time he came, this fragment was a corpse sleeping alone in Gui Xu, holding a faint hostility toward all outsiders. Now it had withdrawn that hostility, replaced by another extremely faint emotion—recognition of him. The fragment's aura, upon sensing his entry's legal fluctuation, had gained a kind of dazed anticipation like waking halfway from sleep. It turned its head from its long sleep to look at him. He stood there, gazing for a long time. Then he stepped forward, setting foot upon that land.

Beneath his feet was soil, black. Not the black of humus, but black to the point of grayish, absorbing light faintly in darkness. Moist, but not the dampness of recent rain—here there is no rain, it is the soil itself maintaining an extremely faint humidity, that being the water vapor from subterranean spirit springs when the Immortal Realm still existed, sealed in the soil layers and never dissipated. His foot stepped on it, the soil did not raise dust—here dust had settled long ago, whatever remained clung tightly to the soil particles. It emitted a faint odor, not the stench of decay—decay requires bacteria and fungi, the Immortal Realm Fragments' legal remnants preserved the original environment: bacteria dead from lack of air, fungal spores dormant. It was the smell of "waiting," like an old house long uninhabited, doors and windows shut, air not circulating, yet inside the wooden objects, paper, cotton textiles quietly aging, not molding or rotting, merely waiting—waiting for someone to push open that door.

The soil was waiting for him. Since the day he took away the Chaos Divine Stele it had been waiting. The stele had once been the core of this continent—the masters of the Immortal Realm Fragments are gone, but its legal core remains embedded in the altar. After the stele was taken, the core position became a void, the continent's legal circuitry unable to find a hub, only able to self-sustain at minimal circulation. The soil waited for the hub's return—it did not know whether the stele would return, but it knew the stele had not died, because that root still breathing remained buried deep in the soil layers, connecting the stele to him. He had come, the soil felt it. Beneath his feet it trembled slightly—not an earthquake, but an extremely fine legal ripple in the soil, spreading from his soles in all directions, dissipating at one zhang outward. Like a person saying—You have returned. Not welcome, not reproach, but "confirmation"—confirming he was still here, confirming the stele was still within him.

He walked past the immortal herb garden. The dead trees still stood—their trunks had died thirty thousand years ago, wood dehydrated and contracted, bark split into countless strips, but not peeled. The layer of grayish dry cracked shell on the trunks had been time-gilded into a fragile yet fixed shape. But on the trunks there were new buds—not living, but bud points naturally present on the dead branches. Those bud points had formed thirty thousand years ago when the trees were still alive, they are dormant buds—trees in health will compress part of their buds into dormancy, hiding them under the bark, to sprout again when the main trunk is damaged. Here there is no wind, no rain, no dispersal mechanism, they have never sprouted. They have waited a long time—waited for rain, waited for wind, waited for a person. He had come, but he could not take them away. His chaotic power is living power, cannot resurrect already dead trees—the boundary between death and life is one of the myriad things encompassed by chaos, he can touch it, but he respects the death's tranquility in this ruin. He cannot revive the dead trees, cannot promise what may never be fulfilled. He could only look at them, and in his heart say—Someone will come. Someone will come. Not him, but the future. The Immortal Realm has opened, the Immortal Realm Fragments will one day be rediscovered, cultivators will pierce Gui Xu to come here, someone will bring water, soil, and sunlight, letting these dormant buds know rain still exists, wind still exists.

He walked past the bones of the Chaos White Tiger. The last time he came, the remains still held the posture the White Tiger had in its final moments—skull resting on its forepaws, spine curled into an arc, tail folded against its side. Now the bones were gone—not carried away, but turned to dust. The void of Guixu had no wind, but time itself grinds all things to powder. The bone ash spread from where the skeleton had lain, leaving the faintest traces of gray-white on the stone slabs, like a projection of the White Tiger's frame. Some fell on the slabs—the dust stirred by the faint air currents from Wang Ping's steps, sliding minutely across the stone. Some fell on the dead trees—ash lodged in bark cracks, filling a hairline dry fissure. Some fell on his shoulder—he felt an almost imperceptible weight on his right shoulder, looked down, and saw a pinch of ash, each grain no larger than a mote, slowly sliding along the depressions in his coarse cloth. He did not brush it off, for this dust was the ashes of the Chaos White Tiger. Ashes should be respected—not with reverence, but with "recognition": acknowledging its death, its presence, and how its ashes entrusted their final form to the air currents he stirred as he passed. He stood there, facing the dust for a while. Then he bowed—spine bending vertebra by vertebra from the lumbar down until parallel to the ground, pausing a few breaths, then rising slowly, joint by joint. Thank you. Your fragments helped me—the White Tiger's soul, transformed into Chaos Spirit Light, had blocked a fatal attack for him at the edge of Guixu. He drew from his bosom a tiny tiger tooth fragment, the only remnant left after the Chaos White Tiger's death, which he had once brought to the Spirit Realm and carefully brought back. He condensed a thin layer of Chaos Soft Light in the air to cradle it, placing it at the center of the dust. Your Dao, I am still comprehending—the White Tiger's Dao is protection, not combat. Combat is merely one way of protection, not the whole. He straightened and continued on.

He reached the depths of the Immortal Palace. The building complex still lay in the center of the ruins—fallen stone pillars shattered into sections, each break already weathered into obscurity; the immortal patterns on the broken walls still glowed with an extremely faint, minute luminescence in the dark, remnants of spiritual power carved thirty thousand years ago. The altar still stood—the altar was the core of the entire Immortal Palace, where the Chaos Immortal Stele slept. The stele was gone, taken by himself, but its traces remained. Those patterns still remained—not carved on the walls, but etched onto the altar tabletop. Chaos-colored immortal patterns radiated from the altar's center outward, each line a physical manifestation of a miniature law, originally serving as energy conduits for the Chaos Immortal Stele. Those steps still remained—the nine stone steps rising from ground to altar top, each bearing a shallow groove worn by the knees of worshippers. Those light points still remained—after the stele was taken, residual immortal spirit energy had not fully dissipated, condensing into extremely fine, minute points of light, hovering in the air around the altar like countless lamps about to go out. They waited there for its return—not for the stele to fly back on its own, but for someone to bring it back, even if only to look.

Wang Ping stood at the altar's center, drawing the Chaos Immortal Stele from his bosom. A palm-sized stone tablet, heavy and dense, like a slab of iron pressed against his chest—not truly heavy, but his heart weighing it down. The four characters on its face were no longer bright—the four ancient characters of the Chaos Immortal Stele had once shone, Chaos-colored light flashing from deep within the strokes like fire in a wick. Now they were dim and clouded, like the eyes of the dead—eyeballs still there, pupils still there, but no light. He placed the stele on the altar—not in the center, but where the stele had originally lain. That spot held an extremely shallow depression, its size and shape perfectly matching the stele's base. He set the stele into it. Stepping back, he looked at it.

He waited a while. Nothing happened. No light, no sound, no vibration, no law revival. The stele lay quietly on the altar, like an ordinary stone. He sat down, cross-legged. Not giving up, but "waiting"—he drew his Chaos Divine Sense into his dantian, not urging, not rushing, simply sitting there. Closing his eyes. Mind sinking into dantian—the Chaos Spirit Sea in his dantian turned slowly, speed not fast but extremely steady. The Chaos Primordial Spirit opened its eyes, standing at the center of the Spirit Sea. For three years it had been cultivating—not power, but "stillness": sitting still, breathing still, waiting still. In the quiet chamber bed it learned to wait for the body to say "can" before acting, no matter how urgent; on the back mountain stone platform it learned to attach consciousness to light spots and move from east to west without acceleration; in the Sutra Pavilion it learned to turn pages without skipping lines, skimming, or rushing to the end. Now it had waited long enough. The Primordial Spirit rose—stepping forward with its left foot from the center of the Spirit Sea, the foot touching the spirit liquid surface and sending out a tiny ripple. It exited the dantian, entered the Chaos Immortal Stele.

The stele spirit dwelled in the deepest part of the stone tablet—there, the Chaos-colored mist was thinner than before, so thin that the void structure behind it could be seen, the skeletal framework of the stele's internal law framework. He sat in the mist's center, cross-legged, hands resting on his knees. Gray robe, silver hair hanging limp at his sides, no longer fluttering, face thinner—cheekbones higher, eye sockets deeper, eyes closed. Breathing slow and steady, like a person taking deep breaths in the dead of night—not asleep, but in a coma. Wang Ping walked to him, sat down. Not cross-legged, but directly seated on the mist opposite him, their knees nearly touching. He said nothing, for he did not know what to say. Thank you, too light—the stele spirit had used all its power to help him cleave Chaos and Open Heaven, that sword splitting the core of the Order Sovereign and also severing the stele spirit's own spiritual connection. Sorry, too heavy—the stele spirit needed no apology; from the day it acknowledged him as master, it had prepared to exhaust everything for him. He simply sat, keeping the stele spirit company. Sitting here, not leaving, not urging, not speaking.

He sat for an unknown length of time. In Guixu there is no time, and inside the stele even less. Perhaps a day, perhaps a year. He merely sat, adjusting his Chaos Spirit Power to the softest, gentlest frequency, drawing it from his dantian to seep through the extremely narrow gap between his knees and knees into the stele spirit's body. The stele spirit's breathing changed—it became slightly faster—not truly faster, but its rhythm shifted from near stillness to a frequency discernible by the ear. Like a person whose legs have gone numb from squatting, beginning to consciously wiggle toes.

Wang Ping opened his eyes. The stele spirit's eyes had not opened—eyelids still closed, but the eyeballs twitched extremely slightly beneath the lids, the final step before waking: consciousness had risen from sleep, now reasserting control over the body. His lips moved. No sound—not because vocal cords did not vibrate, but because power had not yet recovered enough to drive law resonance. Yet Wang Ping heard—the stele spirit's consciousness vibration transmitted directly into his Chaos Primordial Spirit, bypassing sound entirely. It was saying—You have come. Three words, very light, very faint, like wind through leaves. The last time they met was still in the ruins of the Order Holy Hall, when he had placed his hand on the spirit's crown and said, "You need not let go, you only need to contain." Then he collapsed, slept for three years. Three years later, waking, the first thing he saw was still this person, still sitting here. Not having left.

Wang Ping said in his heart—I have come. Not spoken with the mouth, but with the heartbeat. He matched his heartbeat to the stele spirit's breathing rhythm, letting his heartbeat carry those two words. The stele spirit's lips twitched again—You are here, then I am awake. Not stating causality—not saying "Because you are here I woke," for the stele spirit needs no such words. It is "recognition"—recognizing this person as its master, recognizing this person still present, recognizing that after sleeping three years and waking, it need not seek a new master. Wang Ping reached out and took the stele spirit's hand. That hand rested on the stele spirit's knee, fingers slightly curled, joints hard, skin cold—cold as ice, as snow, as death. But his hand was warm. Not because the stele spirit warmed itself—he sent his newly refined, purer Chaos Power from his palm, not seeping, but "transferring." Transfer is not infusion; it is between two people, passing power when the other is willing to accept, the other receiving it with residual spiritual sense, transforming and absorbing it. Chaos Power flowed from Wang Ping's palm into the stele spirit's body, like warm river water flowing over a dry riverbed. The riverbed moistened—the stele spirit's meridians, originally dried and shrunken, began to unfurl after being gently moistened by Chaos Spirit Power. Grass grew—on the surface of his spiritual sense, extremely fine repair traces appeared, like old dead skin washed away, revealing a thin new layer beneath, emitting a grayish transparent trace. Flowers bloomed—from the corners of his closed eyes seeped a faint glow, not wakefulness, but the nearness of waking.

The stele spirit's eyes opened. Not slowly—already open. Chaos-colored, dim and clouded, like the sky before dawn—not bright, but "the gray before it will brighten." He looked at Wang Ping, looked for a long time. Then the corner of his mouth twitched—not a smile—muscles long unused, he had forgotten how to smile. It was "recognition"—recognizing this master, recognizing his perseverance, recognizing his obsession. Three years ago he recognized Wang Ping's obsession—this person could cling to another's shadow and refuse to let go, could burn his own life just to pull someone back from the edge of dissipation. Three years later he recognized Wang Ping's waiting—waiting for himself to walk from bed to door, waiting to walk from back mountain to front mountain, waiting for the stele spirit to wake from coma, waiting for Ninth Sister to open her eyes in the Fusang tree trunk. Doing nothing, merely waiting. Waiting is greater than obsession.

"You have grown thin." The voice came from the stele spirit's throat, hoarse and light, like that voice from thirty thousand years ago vibrating for the first time in thirty thousand years.

Wang Ping smiled—not a big laugh, just the corner of his mouth lifted by an extremely faint arc, like his smile when the Shadow had just risen from the shadows. The stele spirit also smiled—corner of mouth moved slightly, amplitude a bit greater than before, though still no laugh lines formed, but eyes cooperated, the outer corners pulling in an extremely faint amount. Both smiles were so faint they were nearly invisible. But they saw— the stele spirit saw Wang Ping smiling, Wang Ping saw the stele spirit smiling, seeing each other's smile was seeing that the other still lived.

The stele spirit withdrew its hand from Wang Ping's—not because it was no longer needed, but because it needed that hand for another task. He placed his hand on the ground—not the altar's stone slab, but the void layer beneath the Chaos mist inside the stele. The ground lit up beneath his palm—light seeped from stone cracks, not silver-white nor Chaos, but the radiance of the Chaos Immortal Stele itself. Climbing the altar, the immortal patterns lit up one after another, radiating from the center outward, each pattern lighting with an extremely slight fluctuation—the resonance of law channels reconnecting. Climbing the steps—the shallow grooves on the nine stone steps filled with light, those knee-worn depressions becoming bright spots in the light. Climbing the palace walls—the immortal patterns on the broken walls brightened not just one level but many, from faint fluorescence to steady radiance. The Chaos Immortal Stele awoke.

Wang Ping rose from the altar, holding the stele in his hand. The stele was still palm-sized, but its weight had changed—not heavier, but "full." Before it was an empty vessel; now it held light, spirit sense, and a slow but steady beating heart. He placed the stele against his heart in his bosom. It was beating—not a heartbeat, but the "jump" of life: the stele spirit had reactivated the stele's core laws, turning the stele into a living immortal artifact rather than a dead remnant. It lived, and so did he.

He turned and walked down from the altar. Looking back—those immortal patterns began to dim as he descended the steps, not all at once, but step by step—the first step's patterns darkened when his foot left it, the second still lit as he stepped over, and when he reached the third step, the second finally dimmed. Not extinguished, but "asleep"—just as the stele spirit had been before: no longer running at high speed, but maintaining the barest trace of life, awaiting the next destined one. They had waited thirty thousand years, waited for the Chaos Immortal Stele. Now the stele had left, they too could sleep. Sleep until the next destined one comes—perhaps no one will ever come, Guixu too deep, immortal realm fragments too remote, the Chaos Immortal Stele already taken. Perhaps someone will come tomorrow—the immortal realm gate has opened, someone will surely follow the law's remnants here. They are not in a hurry.

Wang Ping walked out of the Immortal Palace, past the Immortal Herb Garden—dormant buds on the dead trees still as they were, desiccated bud scales wrapping growth cones long ceased cell division. But as he passed, he left a drop of Chaos Spirit Liquid, not soaking into the soil, condensing into an extremely minute bead on the surface, awaiting future dispersal. Past the bones of the Chaos White Tiger—the tiger tooth fragment still lay where it had been, resting quietly in the gray dust. This time he did not stop, merely brushing his fingertip against his collarbone below—where the White Tiger fragment had once saved him. He reached the edge of the immortal realm fragments. He looked back—the land was still that land, mountains, rivers, plains, valleys, basins. But he knew it was different. Because it had awaited him—awaited his second coming, awaited the Chaos Immortal Stele's return to the altar, awaited the stele spirit's awakening. He would not come a third time. Because it had already given him its best—the stele's acknowledgment of mastery, the stele spirit's awakening, full inheritance rights to all immortal pills, artifacts, and arts within the stele—no reason to return. He turned and stepped into Guixu.

The passage's mouth awaited him—the roots of Fusang stretching from the darkness, their tips curled into a tiny circle, within which faint Chaos-colored light leaked—Fusang summoning him home. Like a mouth—not one that devours, but one that calls: lips pursed into a tiny circle, about to call his name, not yet spoken, merely waiting there for him. He entered. The wood creaked under his feet, same as before. He listened—to Fusang's heartbeat, a little faster than before, for the roots sensed his return and sent the signal ahead to the Spirit Realm. He listened to Ninth Sister's breath—still as light and slow as ever, but on exhalation a trace of extremely fine tremor slipped from her nasal cavity—she was still asleep, but not deeply. He listened to the Spirit Realm's sounds drawing nearer—Cangxuan sparring disciples with wooden swords on the training ground, Yuliuli playing a new tune beneath Fusang, Youying's shadow gliding over the quiet chamber threshold. The passage's end was light—Spirit Realm sunlight, golden, warm, falling on his face. He closed his eyes, then opened—the light still held the same warmth, this was morning of a new day.

Beneath Fusang, Youying awaited him. She stood there, hands hanging at her sides, her right thumb lightly pinching the joint of her left index finger—her habit when waiting for someone. Her hair was wind-tousled, a wisp escaping from behind her ear, blown to lie across her lips above, she did not brush it away, for her eyes were seeking him—before he appeared, she had fixed her gaze on the tree trunk's exit, unblinking. He did not run to her, she did not run to him. Not from lack of desire, but from the first meeting after so long—afraid the other might not be real. He walked over, each step steady. Standing before her, her shadow cast a small patch of coolness on him. Neither spoke—he already knew what had transpired in the Spirit Realm these three years, she already knew what had occurred in the immortal realm fragments. No need to ask. Wind blew, leaves rustled. Fusang's canopy swayed gently in the wind, as it always did when he stood beneath it.

"I have returned." He said not "I succeeded," not "I obtained a new wick," not "The stele spirit awoke." But "I have returned"—I went out, I came back. She did not nod, merely lowered her hand from his face, turned his hand over, and pressed his palm to her heart. Her heartbeat also beat steadily—more steadily than before, one beat, one beat, one beat.

Each contraction pressed his palm root lightly toward her chest, each expansion returned him. She was saying—I have returned. He was not the only one returning. She too had waited, waited three years; she too had walked, from shadow back to body, from weakness to being able to stand independently beneath Fusang awaiting him. She too had returned.