Chapter 1243

It cannot be denied that the Imperial Tutor is the most outstanding teacher of the Empire, but his ideas and temper are truly daunting.

"No, you must come with me! If you don't go, then the Imperial Tutor will only lecture me alone, haha." It was precisely out of this worry that Emperor Tianwu XXII called Lord Xuan Wuji along; otherwise, he alone would have been enough.

"Wow, Your Majesty, you actually schemed against me, and told me so bluntly."

"Hehe, then let me tell you something else—I hope you can completely draw the Imperial Tutor's attention."

"No… absolutely not!"

The address of the Astrology Tower is at the northwest corner of the Imperial Palace, and it is also the tallest building within the Imperial City, with a total of ten floors. The Imperial Tutor lives above the tenth floor, and the tower is occupied year-round by the Imperial Tutor alone. However, attendants are periodically sent in to clean, but it is said that the attendants who go in to clean often become mentally deranged after coming out.

Legend has it that the Imperial Tutor is able to live forever without aging; no one knows his exact age. He has already assisted five successive Tianwu Emperors, and each Tianwu Emperor's reign lasted sixty years. Now, three hundred years have passed, and the Imperial Tutor still resides in the Astrology Tower, still as young as ever.

Some say the Imperial Tutor has glimpsed the secrets of heaven and long since achieved immortality; while others speculate that the Imperial Tutor relies on the Astrology Tower to conceal his vital aura, preventing the heavens from finding him, thereby indirectly achieving immortality.

Three hundred years ago, the then Tianwu Emperor undertook massive construction, summoning renowned craftsmen from across the Empire—thousands upon thousands—to the Imperial Capital, expending countless material and financial resources, all for the sake of building the Astrology Tower that could glimpse a sliver of heaven's secrets! This说法 is not without possibility.

But what exactly is the secret of the Imperial Tutor's immortality? No one knows; perhaps only the Imperial Tutor himself knows clearly.

Astrology Tower.

Emperor Tianwu XXII and Lord Xuan Wuji paid a late-night visit. The two had only just walked to the door of the Astrology Tower when the Bideda Sect, tightly shut, was suddenly opened from the inside out. Immediately, gusts of eerie wind came from within, accompanied by a woman's bizarre laughter, enough to make one's hair stand on end.

Those who didn't know might think this was some gloomy, strange place, but Xuan Wuji and Emperor Tianwu XXII, who were in the know, exchanged a glance, their faces bearing a measure of reverence. Their reverence was not for the strange movements and eerie laughter coming from within, but solely for the Imperial Tutor who resided on the tenth floor.

Entering the first floor of the Astrology Tower was like entering an endless hell. The great door behind them closed along with it. The air was filled with the smell of decay and blood. The hanging ghost-fire lamps flickered on and off. In the corners, water constantly dripped onto piles of ghastly white bones, from within which seemed to peer a pair of crimson eyes, secretly watching the two who had entered. In the grooves along both sides of the path flowed an unknown bright-red liquid, occasionally bubbling up; when the bubbles burst, they would emit a foul stench.

Emperor Tianwu XXII and Lord Xuan Wuji, however, walked unhurriedly all the way to the deepest point, then went up the stairs. The second floor was still like an endless purgatory. Unlike the first floor, here on the Shi Zhu were bound blood-and-flesh-blurred bodies, and beneath them, white skeletons constantly used whips to lash the bodies tied to the pillars. The bodies would writhe, even letting out shrill screams from the whipping. Fresh blood flowed down the Shi Zhu, dripping into the grooves, and flowing toward the first floor.

Everything here was far too real.

As if it were truly happening before one's eyes in all its tragic horror. This Astrology Tower was never some place for glimpsing heaven's secrets, but a living purgatory!

However, Emperor Tianwu XXII and Lord Xuan Wuji were not here for the first time. They knew well that all of this was merely illusion, and this precisely reflected the Imperial Tutor's strange temper and ideas.

The Imperial Tutor believed that everything in the world undergoes an endless, eternal轮回; people are so, and the world is so. Life and death are merely two extreme opposing forms, yet they depend on each other.

轮回 is the sole theme of the world!

The original intention of building the Astrology Tower was to glimpse that one different契机 within the轮回 of life and death! Thus, each floor of the Astrology Tower presents a different scene, and likewise represents a different meaning.

Continuing upward from the fifth floor, there were no stairs either; the only entrance was that ring of light. Passing through the ring of light and opening their eyes once more, the two had already arrived at the sixth floor, where the environment was completely different.

In the spring fields, farmers toiled diligently, sowing new seeds and looking forward to the autumn harvest. Not far off in a village, beside a simple wooden house, an anxious husband paced back and forth. Accompanied by the sound of a baby's cry rising from within the house, a new life was born, and both the husband and his weary wife revealed incomparably relieved smiles.

The seventh floor: the baby grew into an adult, and the young man wandered far and wide.

The eighth floor: the young man also entered middle age, gradually settling down in an unfamiliar city, taking a wife and having children.

The ninth floor: in the blink of an eye, the middle-aged man lay on a sickbed, having reached his twilight years, awaiting the arrival of death.

After that… there was no after.

Everything moves from the end of death toward life, and from the beginning of life toward death.