Chapter 506

Blue Star Blue Star →: xbiqugu

"You ask me what the Dao of this world is like? You ask me—who do I ask?"

"When the universe perishes, the Cosmic Emperor is born; in a single thought, the myriad worlds are restored."

"The Cosmic Emperor embraces the complete natural universe and attains a life that transcends the universe itself; as long as one anchor point remains unerased, even if the universe is destroyed from its very beginning, the Cosmic Emperor can swap it with that anchor point and recreate everything—mutually reinforcing, nested like dolls—isn't that beautiful?"

"But the Dao of this world has never paid me any attention! It doesn't even care that it's collapsing from its very roots! It's just a damn slacker!"

"Do you see those countless universes, which were just chilling in chaos, forcibly dragged over the moment He intruded?!"

"He causes trouble, I pay the bill, got it?"

"If it weren't for our blood-deep grudge, I'd just pack up and leave with my people right now!"

Then came a barrage of complaints—not hard to understand; imagine you're Zhuge Liang, but your emperor isn't Liu Shan—he's the Ming War God.

Not quite right, though—the Ming War God at least has the ambition to climb the ranks.

The world consciousness on my side actually exists, but it's a total slacker who reacts to nothing.

In Su Tuoni's words, before his big move, including the Cosmic Emperor and other world Daos, everyone had made preparations—everyone had lit the stove and boiled the water, ready to throw this universe into the pot as an offering—and that slacker just didn't care.

As long as you don't bother Him, once an unknown Dao personality annoyed Him, He got slapped back and sent back to the furnace for reprocessing.

"I annoyed Him with spam calls, and He smashed my phone." That was Su Tuoni's final evaluation—and the only understanding he had.

"That's it?" Su Lin dropped his chopsticks: "That's all?"

Su Tuoni forced a smile: "Aren't you his bloody son?"

So why did he react so strongly when he saw Su Lin at this time point, under Dao protection, able to command Heavenly Will—when it wasn't the usual Heavenly Will granted to the chosen one or fate-blessed hero, but something closer to raw, unrestricted access to primordial authority, as long as the vessel could bear it?

Why?!

"I ain't never even met Him," Su Lin mumbled through a rib.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Su Tuoni clapped hard, his eyes bloodshot, his smile edged with madness.

Even though he didn't need the Dao's power, if it had worked back then, he could've taken this entire universe and fled, then leisurely toyed with his enemies for tens of thousands of years—until he scattered their ashes.

What you can't get always stirs; what you're favored with makes you bold.

"Hey," Su Tuoni said to the puppet waiter bringing dishes: "Change the song."

The puppet nodded slightly, removed its white glove, and snapped its fingers.

Back back back back back, he shouldered his pack and left home

"Isn't this a Michelin restaurant?!" Su Tuoni gave up thinking and just started eating—he himself hadn't stopped talking, and the guy across from him hadn't stopped eating either.

But this food clearly tasted delicious, so why did it feel…

Sour?

Unlike him, Su Lin ate with relish, especially since he wasn't paying for it—the flavor was even better.

Like back in school: the spicy strips you stole from your desk-mate always tasted better than the ones you bought yourself for fifty cents.

The conversation ended; there was nothing else to ask.

Both sides resumed their dinner, but there was little to say—mostly, Su Lin chatted with Su Tuoni about meaningless or incomprehensible things.

Regarding the future, beyond essential information, Su Lin didn't want to know any of the side details.

"Not full yet," Su Lin stared at the newly served Abyss Lamb Head with River of Souls Sauce: "Please, my other self."

"I'm not inside the Thousand-Year Puzzle," Su Tuoni said

expressionlessly.

Luo Xiaoying had just picked up her knife and fork when she received a voice message; her eyes lit up, and she tried to push her untouched dish forward: "Brother Lin—"

Yi Leina propped her cheek on one hand, glanced at the cream-baked mushrooms on her plate, twitched her eyelid, and forked them all onto Su Lin's plate.

Su Lin ate the mushrooms, wiped his mouth, and said: "Thank you for the meal—I'm full."

Luo Xiaoying's situation was too obvious; Su Lin could still see a bit of it.

My inexplicable charm is indeed a headache—but luckily, the little witch beside me hates mushrooms; this move gave Su Lin an excuse to step back, interrupting her spellcasting, or the scene would've gotten awkward.

This place isn't safe to linger—eat and leave while you still can.

Luo Xiaoying spoke casually: "By the way, Su Lin, do you remember which anime Dongma is from? There's a famous line, right?"

The Su Lin she meant was Su Tuoni, who naturally feigned confusion and shook his head: "Sea Tiger?"

"Renya," Su Lin corrected.

"White Album, Mr.," the puppet reminded.

"I'm full too," Su Tuoni pointed at the brass cart piled with leftovers: "Pack up the rest for me."

Leave not a single bite for that thing across from me.

The servant took in Su Tuoni's words, nodded slowly: "Yes, honored guest."

The moon broke through the clouds, slipping through the curtain's gap.

The old film projector hummed as it turned; in the dark room, a beam of light projected onto the screen.

The live-updated audio and visuals froze on the final moment—the puppet's head crushed in a single hand.

"I knew why you called me back right after I returned…"

Meng Qi maintained the Cause of All Results, watching the live feed projected by Ke Lan, and sighed: "So that's it. Hard to discern the current situation, but it doesn't seem like any hypnosis or mind-control was used. If anything, if he had used such methods, he'd seem more normal."

If yesterday's situation could still be explained as mutual protection between close friends, tonight's events, examined closely, were clearly off.

The task is done—Young Lady, why are you still acting?

The sharp-eyed, warmhearted citizen Mr. Zhou secretly reached out to the few married folks in the group and teamed up with the gossip crowd to help analyze.

"We can't rule out the possibility that Su Lin paid extra to issue a new task," Meng Qi glanced at Xiao Yan, then looked away. "No signs of a traditional sect incident."

Xiao Yan frowned: "What's that look supposed to mean?"

Ye Fan patted Xiao Yan on the shoulder: "Don't ask questions like this when everyone already knows the answer."

A clearly defined question.

Xiao Yan said seriously: "I gave him a bottle before, but I trust his character."

Everyone stared blankly at each other, even Ye Fan froze.

You really gave it to him?!

"That's the only explanation left—if not, it makes no sense," Penglai Shan Huiye tapped her own head lightly: "The most common trope in games is this: there's a key item that boosts affinity."

Lu Mingfei said nothing, his face pale as if he'd eaten something rotten, hidden by the room's lighting.

"Let fate take its course," Meng Qi waved his hand and rose to leave: "If they get married tomorrow, I'll swallow the Real World whole as my wedding gift."

Today he'd planned to take Gu Xiaosang to Guduo, fight one of the names on the Black List, then openly take Gu Xiaosang—the Holy Maiden of the Luo Sect—away, beginning a tale of wandering the world together through dust and flame.

Meng Qi was no longer planning to conceal himself.

Under current circumstances, with legendary transcendents absent, even revealing a fraction of his cultivation would let him walk rampant through this world's martial realm.

As for the involvement

Regarding the struggle over transcendence tied to Wu Sheng Laomu, Gu Xiaosang deduced that since she too had gained memories of the future and intervened in Meng Qi's changes, it meant that whatever they did now was already caught in the vortex.

Knowing he was inferior in strategy, Meng Qi naturally followed his wife's analysis.

If so, then just do what Meng Qi wanted to do.

"Act normal, Senior Meng Qi! Why are you even making such terrifying jokes?!" Song Shuhang said helplessly.

"Haven't you realized yet?" Meng Qi had already stepped half his foot into the teleportation gate and turned back to Song Shuhang:

"If we count the chat group's members as a faction, our sphere of influence now spans and even governs several universes."

Meng Qi left, but his words echoed repeatedly in everyone's minds.

Carefully calculating,

Su Lin, newly become Lord Haotian, had acquired a world where all great transcendents had entered reincarnation, now dominated solely by the Heaven Court's Journey to the West realm.

How many is this now?

Ye Fan turned his gaze toward Kleine.

Kleine cleared his throat: "That day, you were the one who sent him the fruit basket."

Ye Fan fell silent for a moment, puzzled: "Did it really work?"

Shi Hao shook his head; having never acted in nor watched a movie, he didn't understand why these people were reacting so dramatically over such a trivial thing.

"I'm going to challenge Su Lin," Shi Hao said: "If I win, I'll interrogate him about whether he has feelings for her."

"No, you didn't understand the situation—it's not Su Lin," Lu Mingfei reached out to stop Shi Hao and explain, but only caught a lingering flame afterimage; the man had already departed using the True Phoenix Divine Art.

In the blink of an eye, Shi Hao arrived above the Dome of Heaven, searching for Su Lin's figure.

Even his past entanglements with those several fat women weren't this tedious.

"Found him."

Shi Hao smiled, drew forth the Great Luo Sword Embryo, and flew toward the target—there, floating above the sea of clouds, was a mountain he'd never seen before, and Su Lin stood at its very peak.

Clouds steamed, rosy mists swirled, purple qi surged straight toward the Dipper and Ox.

Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine stone steps, each covered in ancient vines, ancient bronze ritual vessels lined both sides of the stairs.

"If you can use it, don't leave it unused."

If you draw a usable item, you can't just let it gather dust in storage.

Go ask the heavens in another universe?

Ask whom?

Ask myself?

Su Lin held a jade bi with string-patterned rim, arriving atop the Ask-Heaven Altar, where the air was thick with ancient aura; at its center lay a clear spring.

He stepped forward, and countless true illusions enveloped the sky.

Instantly, gales roared, lightning cracked, rain poured, heaven darkened, earth plunged into gloom.

Su Lin pulled several small black cubes from his robes, then tossed the ancient jade bi into the clear spring.

Gudong.

The Ask-Heaven Altar, whose origin lay in some unknown universe and whose history had been forgotten for eons, began to tremble; the bronze ritual vessels, nearly rotted by time, emitted thunderous, earth-shaking resonances.

As if the wills of countless beings had descended, questioning words pierced upward through the nine heavens, echoing across heaven and earth.

Ask heaven, ask earth, ask ancient times, ask the present, ask gods, ask mortals, ask the transformations of nature, ask the mysteries of yin and yang, ask the chaos of the world!

Time and space lost all meaning; all things in the world gradually blurred, until they vanished into nothingness.

After an unknown duration, when Su Lin came to his senses, the entire world had vanished—he could only sense himself, and two or three directions connected to him in the boundless void.

His perspective had utterly changed, arriving at a dimension outside normal reality.

This experience was unprecedented.

In a single moment of dizziness, he felt countless "voices" overlapping beside his ears, as if questioning, yearning for something.

These voices clustered around him, like a tide, pushing him upward,

toward infinite heights.

But soon, he felt everything sink into darkness, while pure light flowed over his body.

Su Lin felt nothing; after thinking in a way beyond description, he spoke: "Are you there?"

The voice echoed.

As if triggering some taboo.

In this eternal instant, Su Lin distinctly felt intense repulsion emanating from every direction.

It remained silent, yet countless chain reactions were destroying everything.

Su Lin's heart tightened, and he immediately spoke again: "Eat?"

Three tiny black cubes, no larger than fingernails, their surfaces smooth as mirrors, were held between his fingers.

They detached from the entanglement of light and chaos, and the laws, like spider silk drifting in the air, returned into Su Lin's body.

That was Creation Gold.

"I'll pay."

The hazy sense of repulsion suddenly halted; in Su Lin's strange perception, some chain of things, like gears, came to a stop.

It began with the shattering of one piece of Creation Gold.

It dispersed into clusters of energy that spread through the void, like ripples on a lake—just one ring of waves brushing over Su Lin, causing him to forget his very self.

When he came to his senses, a scene of a universe naturally birthing itself had appeared in his mind, as if he'd been sitting in front of a television, watching a documentary for countless years.

Witnessing something emerge from nothing, something stirred within him—but vanished in an instant—a ineffable beauty left him utterly at ease.

"You eat it."

The second piece of Creation Gold shattered.

This time,

a universe began to collapse; across countless spacetimes, giant black holes simultaneously swallowed the life force of galaxies, celestial bodies collided, releasing unimaginably powerful energy.

This scene expanded endlessly, reaching the infinite collection of universes born from the beginning, until total annihilation.

Again, Su Lin awoke, again sensing fleeting things slipping through his grasp, his entire being filled with deep joy and fulfillment.

But this fulfillment was contradictory: on one hand, he, as a living being, experienced an extreme length of time; on the other, the root he connected to returned the sensation of having had a beautiful dream, of enjoying a delicious meal.

"You eat it!" he reiterated.

He exhaled slightly—proof at least that Creation Gold was truly effective, that the Dao of this world required this substance.

The third piece of Creation Gold shattered.

This time, the dispersal did not reach Su Lin—it simply vanished.

"Still understands human speech."

The moment this thought arose in Su Lin, a faint force swept over him, as if stripping away everything about him, probing his condition.

Don't misunderstand! I'm a good person!

Because of the precedent of Fusheng Heaven, Su Lin knew his own situation well—if anything went wrong, he had every urge to flee immediately.

The next second,

a sense of intimacy came from all directions.

It carried nostalgia, and all the scenes of what Su Lin had once received from Heavenly Will flooded into his deepest heart.

"It's you."

Not language. Not sound. Not writing.

He simply knew—somehow—that this was what the other meant.