Chapter 500: One Drop of Tea, Subduing the Nine Heavens

Yao's body dissipated little by little in Sun Wukong's arms.

Light points spread from her shoulders to her neck, making her whole body as light as a feather about to drift away.

Sun Wukong carried her toward Fangcun Mountain, flying so fast that the Starlight behind them stretched into a line.

But he knew it was too late.

Yao's face had become indistinct, only a vague mass of Rainbow Light barely maintaining a human shape.

"Master—"

Sun Wukong hoarsely shouted.

The voice rang across Countless Star Fields, tinged with the scent of blood and a sobbing tone.

Fangcun Mountain.

Under the Old Peach Tree in the Taoist temple's back courtyard, Bodhi Patriarch leaned in a rattan chair, a half cup of cold tea at his side.

He opened his eyes.

Unhurried, as if just awakened from a nap.

But his gaze instantly pierced the void of billions of miles, landing on that dissipating figure.

"That girl."

Bodhi muttered, his tone like saying the neighbor's child fell off a tree again.

He did not stand up.

He didn't even straighten his back from the rattan chair.

He simply extended his gaunt right hand and lifted the tea cup from the table.

The tea had long since cooled.

Bodhi dabbed his index finger.

A single drop of tea clung to his fingertip.

Just one drop.

Brown and ordinary, indistinguishable from the coarse tea sold for three cents a bowl at a street stall.

Bodhi raised his hand to his eyes and examined that drop of tea.

Then he curled his finger.

And flicked it outward.

The moment the drop left his fingertip, it changed.

It did not become some magical divine light.

Its very "meaning" had changed.

One drop of water bore the entire Recognition of an elder toward the younger.

You use Dream to Patch Heaven; then I will grant you the qualification to turn Dream into Heaven.

The tea transformed into a halo.

Gold and green interwove, sized just enough to encircle a person's head.

The halo left Fangcun Mountain's courtyard and surged into the Star Sea.

It moved so fast that no concept could describe it.

Because it need not traverse space at all.

It is Bodhi's will.

Where Bodhi's will wishes to be, it is there.

Sun Wukong was still flying, when a corner of his eye suddenly caught a flash of light.

Coming from the direction of Fangcun Mountain.

A familiar aura.

It's Master's!

The halo swept over his crown without stirring a single hair, flying straight toward the nearly dissipated Rainbow Light in his arms.

Then—

It settled onto it.

Steadily, it landed on the top of the remaining fragment of Yao's light and shadow.

Like pouring a ladle of living water onto a tree about to wither.

The instant the halo settled, Sun Wukong felt the weight in his arms grow.

Not in a physical sense.

But the Existence Sense became heavier.

Yao's body no longer emitted light points outward.

Those drifting fragments that formed her soul seemed seized by something, all fixed in place.

Sun Wukong looked down.

Yao's translucent body surface, starting from where the halo touched, solidified inch by inch.

First the crown.

Then the forehead, brows and eyes, and the bridge of the nose.

Those familiar eyes regained color.

"Master!"

Sun Wukong abruptly halted, suspended in midair, his voice filled with post‑cataclysmic exhilaration.

"Master acted!"

He was so happy he almost dropped Yao.

His whole body jumped up in the void, his golden fur standing on end.

Tears still clung to his face, the corners of his mouth already split to his ears.

That was Bodhi.

It was his master.

As long as the master acts, even if heaven collapses, he can hold it up for you.

Yao felt a warm, moist power pour from the crown of her head into her whole body.

It was not the overbearing, forcefully infused kind.

It was more like spring rain falling on parched earth.

Her five viscera and six bowels, meridians and soul—every corner was soaked by this power.

The primordial source chains that had snapped from overuse began to reconnect under this power's nourishment.

It was not just repair.

It was transformation.

What the halo carried was not mere energy.

It was a kind of authority.

The supreme authority of dreams and reality.

Yao could feel that the membrane between her Illusory Dream Dao and the Real Universe—the membrane she could only bypass with all her might, substituting dreams for reality—was dissolving.

Bodhi cleared it for her.

The final layer.

Yao opened her eyes.

In her pupils, rainbow-colored light and the radiance of real stars intertwined.

Her body went from semi-transparent to fully solid, her skin suffused with a soft glow.

Like the moon had fallen to the mortal world.

She exhaled deeply.

As she exhaled, her body trembled slightly, then steadied completely.

No longer painful.

Her soul was no longer being torn.

The primordial source was no longer leaking.

She had come back to life.

You——

Sun Wukong looked at her, his mouth opening and closing for a while, finally uttering only one word.

Stupid.

Yao was angered into laughter by his word, about to rebut, when she suddenly felt something different.

She lowered her head to look at her hands.

The rainbow light on her palm was no longer illusory.

It was real.

As real as her palm lines.

She tried reaching out and lightly touched a floating meteorite fragment nearby.

Rainbow light flowed from her fingertips, covering the fragment's surface.

The fragment was not sealed inside any dream realm.

It itself changed.

From a lump of dead, lifeless stone, it became a miniature planet.

On it were soil, water, and a sapling just sprouting.

Yao's Illusory Dream Dao merged with the Real Universe.

A complete merger.

From now on, the illusory is no longer illusory.

The dreams she creates are reality.

The world she imagines is an indispensable part of the cosmos.

Dream is truth, truth is dream.

The nine star systems shrouded in rainbow light underwent a qualitative change at this moment.

The dream realm membrane, originally merely a patch, suddenly acquired the density and mass of the Real Universe.

The space nodes filled by the dream realm are no longer makeshift substitutes.

They have become genuine space nodes.

The causeways re-woven are no longer fabricated imitations.

They have become true causality.

The star systems ceased collapsing.

They were not frozen.

They truly stopped.

Because the damaged parts are no longer damaged.

They have been 'turned into' perfect reality.

The universe's own repair mechanism took over the remaining work, like a body growing new flesh after a wound heals.

Everything returned to calm.

Sun Wukong held Yao, suspended in the Star Sea, watching the nine star regions far away gradually lose their iridescent color and return to normal luster.

The stars began to turn again.

The planets returned to their orbits.

The stars burned steadily again.

The mortals in those star systems went on with their lives, unaware of what had just happened.

"I'm telling you—"

Sun Wukong set Yao down, let her steady herself, stepped back, and poked her forehead.

"If you dare risk your life behind my back again, I'll tie you to a peach tree."

Yao rubbed her forehead and glared at him, but couldn't keep the corners of her mouth from turning up.

She really did scare him.

"Let's go."

Yao tugged at his sleeve and glanced toward Fangcun Mountain.

"Go back and thank the Master."

Sun Wukong grunted, bent down, picked up the Iron Staff, and hoisted it onto his shoulder.

After just two steps, he stopped again.

He turned back and glanced at the tranquil Star Sea behind him.

He said nothing.

But he smiled.

Not the arrogant smile he wore after winning a battle.

It was a relieved, weary, grateful smile.

Then he turned, grabbed Yao's hand, and walked toward Fangcun Mountain.

The Vine Patterns on the Iron Staff glimmered faintly, alternating bright and dim.

In the distance, the direction of Fangcun Mountain.

Bodhi set the teacup back on the table and leaned back into the rattan chair.

He closed his eyes, as if he had done nothing at all.

But his thin right hand did not rest on his knee.

Instead, it lay on the armrest.

Palm facing up.

The golden light in his palm pulsed a few times, brighter than before.

That pool of Dead Water was nearer.