Chapter 356: Heavenly Tribulation and Rebirth

【As the saying goes: one's fate must consider both personal struggle and the tide of the times……】

【Standing on the crest of the wave, if you don't want to move forward, someone will push you forward!】

【Song Taizu donning the yellow robe, Tang Taizong's Xuanwu Gate mutiny—none are otherwise.】

【Now this treatment falls to you; as the focus of the era's torrent, you have too many people and things tied to you, and whether you move forward concerns the future of all beings and two worlds, so your choice is sometimes not up to you.】

【You don't want to take risks, you just want to lie flat in the fishing village—obviously against everyone's interest, as everyone awaits a perfect ending; how could it be as simple as you saying you don't want it?】

【Since you can't make up your mind, let someone else decide for you!】

【Obviously, the monkey served as that invisible big hand; wherever the monkey's big hand reaches, history there surges forward……】

【You won't go?】

【Fine, it will make you go!】

【You won't choose?】

【All right, it will choose for you!】

【You can't decide to gamble?】

【No problem, it will make up your mind!】

【Does it not cherish its own life? No, it naturally does, but it cares more for others' lives than its own.】

【From the moment it willingly sacrificed its life for the immortality of a troop of monkeys and their descendants, it prepared itself for sacrifice—whether drowning, starving, thirsting to death, or being killed, it could accept.】

【Likewise now, as long as you succeed, not only will its monkey kin have a chance at immortality, but countless mortals will too—so why would it not do it?】

【Thus, from the start it could never accompany you here in lying flat; deceiving you once at the end is indeed normal……】

【……】

【You fished up the monkey's corpse; it had already drowned.】

【You placed its corpse on the fishing boat, silent, just lowering your head in quiet silence……】

【This monkey, innately able to see into human hearts, chose to deceive you once with its life, pushing you toward the turning point of fate and history.】

【And you, at that historical turning point, can only be forced to stop lying flat.】

【「Seven days left. 」】

【You closed your eyes.】

【You know that if you wait until the seventh day after its death, time will be rewound, and heaven and earth will return, under unimaginable power, to the day the monkey leapt from the stone.】

【And in this process that can be called a heaven‑earth reversal, everything will be reset; then you will face only death……】

【You originally dared not kill the monkey out of fear; now it has jumped into the sea to kill itself—regardless of whether you're afraid, you must now face this heaven‑destroying, earth‑annihilating calamity!】

【「Ten deaths, no life. 」】

【You lower your head trying to find a shred of life, but every analysis leads to a dead end, for you are too weak—how could a mere true god resist the calamitous power set by the dream‑world's master to destroy and remake the world?】

【You gaze complexly at the monkey's lifeless corpse: «If I had any certainty, you would already be dead……Precisely because I have none, I voluntarily sit trapped here—don't you understand? »】

【It surely understands, yet it still did this.】

【「Ah……」】

【You, forced to drive the ducks onto the shelves, can only let out a long sigh, awaiting the final calamity seven days hence……】

……

【For seven straight days, Lin Liu's life was utter silence.】

【He simply repeated over and over what a fisherman should do—fishing, drying nets…… He didn't know why he kept doing these meaningless things, perhaps just to review his skills, or perhaps to fill the emptiness of his life.】

【After all, once a person is busy, they naturally have no mind for other matters; like drinking to drown sorrow, Lin Liu uses fishing to forget his worries.】

【But…… can he really forget? This question can be answered from his absent‑minded actions:】

【How could he forget! Death looms before him—not only will he die, but those he has salvaged will die too; he will break his vow and abandon them, and in his next life he will again abandon another batch……】

【【In the blink of an eye, seven days have passed.】【That day you sat calmly in the courtyard, the monkey's corpse before you, unchanged after seven days—this too suggests its extraordinary nature……】】

【【Suddenly, it moved!】】

【【Before your eyes, it dazedly crawled up, then, sensing you were looking, it gave you a vacant stare.】】

【【Of course, just one glance.】】

【【Then it turned into a brilliant golden light and fled westward, vanishing in an instant!】】

【【Its destination needs no thought—obviously it is «Lingtai Fangcun Shan».】】

【【This is also the first time you've personally witnessed its death and rebirth; if all goes as you expect, upon reaching «Fangcun Shan» it will meet the Patriarch Puti who has long awaited it, and together they will open a new cycle of reincarnation……】】

【【As for this, you have no interest in watching the past, for you know it's a preset procedure—you couldn't change anything in it.】】

【【You simply sit calmly in your own small courtyard, slowly awaiting the destined moment of heaven‑earth reversal……】】

【【And sure enough, it arrived just as you expected—soon it came!】】

【「Crack! 」】

【【Like the sound of glass shattering, you looked up toward the noise and saw a conspicuous crack stretching across the sky.】】

【【And this is only the beginning!】】

【【After the first crack appeared, it was as if a switch had been triggered; in an instant, more cracks kept bursting, from sky to earth, everywhere gaping with these terrifying maws!】】

【【Crack! Crack! ……】】

【【More shattering sounds came; when this burst of noise ended, the heaven and earth before your eyes had become a giant porcelain vessel shattered into countless pieces.】】

【【In the end, the «porcelain» shattered all over the ground!】】

【【Countless fragments flew and fell; where they landed, a dim hue was revealed, and then this endless gloom and the myriad shards ferociously turned into vortices, twisting and deforming heaven and earth……】】

【【At that moment, you standing there naturally suffered an indescribable calamity right away!】】

【【Fragments struck you, vortices twisted you, the gloom swallowed you……】】

【【You were almost instantly dealt a heavy blow; your sturdy dharma‑form true body collapsed at once, leaving only a wandering, aimless soul.】】

And when the change of heaven and earth was about to completely obliterate you, this wandering soul, a streak of crimson red light spontaneously surged toward you!

That was a small sand tray.

Powerful Pangu divine power suddenly activated, shielding the fragile, comatose wandering soul from any harm; fragments, vortices, gloom… all were obliterated beneath the might of Pangu divine power. Amidst these tidal-like impacts, the small sand tray remained as steadfast as a rock, not wavering in the slightest…

……

When you regained consciousness, you were astonished to find yourself already appearing in a familiar fishing village.

This is… I succeeded in crossing the tribulation?!

You stared in disbelief at your wandering soul's form; although your strength had waned to the extreme, probably not even stronger than an ordinary mortal, yet to have survived the world‑ending tribulation that reset heaven and earth is in itself unimaginable!

You also gazed at the small sand tray floating above your head; its crimson light was slowly fading, it that had just resisted the great tribulation for you now, in order to protect your soul, chose to conceal its supreme divine power once more…

Ah, so that's how you use it…

Your feelings were mixed: it turned out you truly possessed the ability to advance the plot, but if it weren't for the monkey giving you a push—like forcing a duck onto a shelf—you'd probably never have discovered this function in your lifetime!

The monkey's words were correct; passing the level inherently requires bold attempts…

However, now is clearly not the time for lamentation, for your fragile wandering soul's body is urgently warning you: quickly find a fleshly body! Otherwise you'll truly die!

Fleshly body?

In your panic, you glanced around and quickly spotted your target!

Aiming at an old lame man who had just died, you threw caution to the wind and lunged straight at him!

In the 135th year of the Great Shun dynasty, you were reborn!

……

(End of chapter)