Chapter 344: Other People's Clothes (Part 2)

He really did it.

Even though Pei Ye couldn't understand the complex hooks and drawings that the man was immersed in and obsessed with, he could see the bright look in his eyes under that dirty clothes, messy hair, and thin bones.

His freedom had actually been restricted, but in the situation where he had to hide from everyone, the man still completed his plan like a genius.

After a month of effort, he finally completely restored this ancient secret array.

He drew and calculated it day after day, thought hard night after night, and the discarded drafts burned into basins of ash.

After another three months, he finally changed a little bit the size of a fingernail on it. Looking at this final completed array map, the man stood like a statue for a long time, until the lamp was about to burn out, before he slowly hooked the corners of his mouth.

Since stepping into this matter, this was the first time he had smiled completely from the bottom of his heart.

Pei Ye didn't understand any array path, but when he saw this picture, he suddenly felt that strange beauty.

There was no disharmony at all. The man filled in a stroke in an already perfect shape, and it was still the same perfection. Pei Ye didn't know what kind of talent this was. Perhaps it was just like the spiritual light when he swung 【Yuntian Zhemu Shi Yu】, in short, he knew that the man had indeed done it.

Pei Ye watched him walk a few steps in the room excitedly and lightly, subconsciously turning his head a few times—that was the desire to share this joy with someone.

In the past twenty-plus years, the number of times this expression appeared on this proud man must have been countable.

But soon he stopped this searching action, lowered his eyes, stood still for a moment, and turned to start collecting and organizing the diagrams on the table.

Qu Zhu waited quietly and patiently for his opportunity, without showing any impatience. He dealt with the visits of his junior brother and Master time and time again calmly, as if after recognizing reality, he had completely despaired of this array and given up his original wild words.

Finally, on a cold, empty night, the wind blew up the snow, covering all shapes, shadows, and sounds, and he climbed to the top of the high cliff alone.

Climbing the stone path he had chiseled open before, he went deeper step by step. Before this night, he had calculated countless times—at this time of year, the tail of the star worm would definitely pass through here.

If this water pavilion was a giant beast, then the guards were the gateway to that place.

Sure enough, after reaching the end, an arc wall cast of bronze blocked the way.

Qu Zhu began to outline array patterns on it with a material he didn't recognize—it really didn't wake it up.

He knew that the so-called "living" was just a description of its performance. No matter how much it looked like a lively creature, its essence was still cold metal. It was Mystic Qi that provided it with the direction of action, and starlight that provided it with the power of action. All of this was just a complex and exquisite array.

Now he had unraveled its program.

The bronze retreated like water, and the wall opened the door for him. Qu Zhu took a deep breath, held his sword, and walked in slowly.

Pei Ye saw for the first time, finally, the source of all this, the way it looked at the beginning.

Since its casting, it had been stepped into by an unauthorized person for the first time. Now, everything was not yet in the state of gray-white rust after half-withering; the bronze walls rose as tall as a canopy, and the arrogant, pillar-like bodies coiled on the walls and the dome, swimming at a slow speed. On this cyan metal flowed cold patterns like water ripples; that was flowing starlight.

People walked in, like mortals stepping into the kingdom of the living gods.

His entry indeed did not alarm this giant beast. The program set by the array was to keep intruders out. Now he had bypassed the bottom-most array and entered, so even if it was still running normally, nothing happened.

This was precisely Qu Zhu's most irrefutable discovery since studying array paths—no matter how mysterious the array, no matter how exquisite the mechanism, as long as it was designed by humans, it must have its rigid parts.

Now, unless this worm was really alive, it would continue to execute according to the array, and would never know that on this night, someone had stepped into it.

Qu Zhu climbed up step by step. At the end of this road, on the high platform, a snow-white jade shape was floating there. The entire hall, from the trend of casting to the patterns carved, and even the moving worm body, were all crowding toward this thing.

Its appearance now looked much more inviolable than it did more than twenty years later. Starlight and Mystic Qi surrounded it, and the unparalleled giant beast was entrenched behind it and on the dome.

Qu Zhu's whole body seemed to become lighter in the shock. Without any sound, he walked up step by step in a daze and came before the high platform.

Pei Ye finally saw this line of ancient characters that had been erased on the platform.

"The position of the Son of Heaven Mu, the tomb of the buried stars. Shishen has not fallen, Daliang has left the position, because of taking Jianglou. The person who enters the hall can know the reality with a saber and sword, obtain Jianglou with reality, and inherit the position of the Western Court with Jianglou."

"..." Pei Ye looked at this line of characters intently. Qu Zhu had already moved his gaze away and landed on this jade pendant.

The characteristics of this magical artifact were much more obvious than the ancient array.

In the shape that Pei Ye and Yang Yan could not find a way to enter, in the man's eyes, it was almost a bright invitation. It did not cover up its own characteristics—at the first moment of seeing the two pupils on the front and back, he saw its function.

"Supervision... storage?" He muttered softly.

"'Appearance'? 'Mystic Qi'? Hmm, it's 'penetration'." Qu Zhu looked at it intently and tested it lightly with True Qi, frowning deeply.

Pei Ye felt what he was thinking—such an obstacle, it was not something that could be 'penetrated' without the Mystic Gate realm. It was not a lock that the power of the Pulse Tree realm could open at all.

But... the key to opening such a storage device should be in 'identification', how could a threshold be set on brute force?

In an instant, the man's gaze moved to the sentence "know the reality with a saber and sword", his mouth relaxed, and his brows and eyes stretched out greatly.

The next moment, he took a light breath, holding the sword in one hand and the scabbard in the other.

The saber and sword chapters were generated in his hands at the same time, one in front and one behind. Amidst the birth of reality and illusion, 【Zhaoyou】 suddenly penetrated.

The immortal object buried for several dynasties finally revealed itself to future generations here for the first time. Pei Ye looked over deeply. Everything had not been touched yet. In the square cage, dark things were floating; inside the round inlay, that bead was as deep as the starry sky.

Pei Ye absolutely recognized it. In the Edict Map, on the waist of that black-robed person... He bit his teeth tightly in an instant.

Qu Zhu's heavy breathing also sounded in this space.

His heartbeat was like a drum. The young genius of the array and artifact paths could more easily see the extraordinary nature of these two things—this was not something that could be included in the category of "magical artifacts" at all. At this moment, he truly believed in the legend of "immortal objects."

Qu Zhu reached out slowly, first touching the square cage on the front.

The change started from here.

What happened in Meng Li's body also happened here, and this mass of matter bit this finger at once, and 【Zhaoyou】 did not record the experience of this body at this moment.

But contrary to Meng Li's experience that day, this darkness did not climb out of the cage. 【Zhaoyou】's record returned, and when Pei Ye looked again, the man was kneeling on the ground in great pain. His eyes were bulging and red, his mouth wide open as if suffocating, saliva mixed with bright red, and blood was flowing out of his seven orifices.

Pei Ye was horrified in front of this tragic state. From the moment he entered this river, he had never seen this man in such a helpless and embarrassed state, simply like a live shrimp thrown on the shore.

Pride, confidence, fear, obsession, anger, excitement... finally facing a heavy hammer of fate.

Ten years later, Qu Zhoufu said softly in the same place: "It was you, little Meng. Countless generations before, countless people could not learn the saber and sword chapters in their entire lives. And the virtual saber and real sword are the foundation of the 'Dao Xu Ming Shi Zong Jing'."

"This is the absolute wall that stopped him. He spent forty years and couldn't pass it."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 345 =====