Chapter 59: 58、Tuesday Sheep

58. Zhou Eryang's past offerings and memories

"I can take you to the bottom of the pool, but if you risk losing your soul down there... I'll have no choice but to bring in Bai Ma." Bai Xue'e spoke up. "When that happens, everything you don't want her to know, she'll know too."

"Fine." Zhou Chang nodded.

Bai Xue'e hesitated, then added, "You... don't act recklessly once you're down there."

"I promise." Zhou Chang gave his assurance again.

"That's good..." Bai Xue'e rose from beside the pool and turned to her father. "Father..."

Bai's father looked at her, then at Zhou Chang, and sighed deeply, waving his hand. "Hurry and return!"

Zhou Chang spread a thick, dark-furred pelt beside the fire, twisted the bone ring on his thumb, and a faint shimmer escaped through its hole, sinking into the hide.

The pelt instantly swelled into a monstrous, half-human-tall, shaggy hound.

It was Ao Duoji.

Stay here and watch over him.

If danger arises, take him and run first." Zhou Chang pointed to Bai’s father beside them and gave Ao Duoji a few instructions.

Ao Duoji bared his bloodied jaws and barked twice, then obediently sat quietly beside Bai’s father.

Seeing this, Bai’s father, who had been fearful, finally calmed down and urged the two to hurry and return.

As Bai Xue'e neared the pool’s edge, she turned her head to Zhou Chang beside her, her expression calm, and extended her slender arm toward him.

Zhou Chang made no hesitation, reaching out to clasp her fingers tightly in his own.

Yet if he descended alone into the deep pool, he would sink all the way to the bottom and see only murky silt—never the strange, surreal sights he had witnessed before. Only Bai Xue'e could guide him to reveal the true face of the Bride’s Pool.

Bai Xue'e lowered her eyelids, rose onto her toes, and gently stepped into the ink-black, shadowy waters.

Hum...

A torrent of offerings and memories surged violently from the water, transforming into dazzling, illusory colors.

Zhou Chang followed Bai Xue'e into this multicolored pool, feeling as if he were enveloped in soft mud—the illusory, shimmering waters around him suddenly morphed into beautiful young women.

Their eyes tightly shut, skin as white as snow, their long black hair flowed like clouds and waterfalls, washing away the darkness and falling like snowflakes.

Delicate, translucent lotus filaments clustered around Zhou Chang’s body, dragging him deeper into the pool.

Zhou Chang saw, amid the black silt at the bottom, white lotus roots rooted deep, intertwining beneath the mud and unfurling their forms, blooming into nine segments of lotus root within the shimmering waters.

Colorful garments hung from the nine segments, swaying gently with the current.

Clusters of lotus filaments drifted out from the holes of the nine segments, densely entwining another lotus root at the pool’s bottom.

This root, wrapped layer upon layer in filaments, faintly revealed the silhouette of a human form.

"Zhou Eryang..."

Zhou Chang instantly recognized the human-shaped lotus root.

As Zhou Chang fixed his gaze upon it, a strange attraction emanated from the human-shaped root, pulling toward him.

Zhou Chang glanced around; Bai Xue'e, who had led him down, had become one of the nine main segments of the lotus root. He turned his gaze back, eyes deep and resolute, spreading his arms, and swam toward the human-shaped root.

The last time he descended into the Bride’s Pool, by this point his consciousness had already been nearly erased by the surging offerings.

Yet now, stepping here again, though Zhou Chang still felt the impact of the offerings and memories upon him, his mind remained strong—showing no sign of unraveling.

—This change was not because the pool’s offerings had weakened.

The offerings beneath the pool flowed as powerfully as ever, unchanged.

The reason was simply that Zhou Chang’s spiritual strength had grown once more.

But since his consciousness remained perfectly intact, untouched by the offerings, it now hindered him from accessing the contents of the "Great Heart Elixir Scripture" while on the brink of soul-loss.

"Try it."

Zhou Chang swam close to the human-shaped lotus root and glanced once more at Bai Xue'e, now one of the nine lotus segments.

Bai Xue'e stood pressed against the segment dressed in a crimson bridal gown—the Bai family’s grandmother. Seeing Zhou Chang’s gaze, her expression tightened with anxiety.

At that moment, Zhou Chang turned back, and threads of thought began to coil and weave around his body.

In his left palm, a pair of purple-black lips grew;

in his right palm, a golden-red imperial seal, inlaid with dragon scales, radiated majestic authority.

He thrust both hands forward, seizing the human-shaped lotus root—Zhou Eryang—embedded in the mud, its body entwined with filaments. Threads of thought surged from his knuckles, connecting with the filaments wrapped around Zhou Eryang’s form!

At this moment, the attraction emanating from the human-shaped root felt almost tangible to Zhou Chang.

He heard a silent call, issuing from within the human-shaped root.

That silent call reminded him of the moment he was carried away in his coffin.

"Zhou Chang!"

"Zhou Chang!"

"Zhou Chang!"

The silent call erupted into deafening shouts!

Zhou Chang saw the face of the root he gripped—eyes, ears, nose, and mouth gradually emerging from the filaments—revealing a face identical to his own, now open-eyed, staring at him with pure malice!

A torrent of offerings poured from the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth of "Zhou Eryang," flooding into Zhou Chang’s own senses!

All thoughts swirling within "Zhou Eryang’s" mind were instantly laid bare before Zhou Chang!

……

Snow-capped mountains encircled a palace bathed in the first rays of the sun.

Prayer flags fluttered in the wind, prayer wheels spun with each gust.

A golden statue of the Wealthy Heavenly King sat atop a bronze lion, surrounded by countless crimson-robed monks with cockade hats, palms pressed together in reverence.

The grand chanting of sutras echoed through the temple hall; after morning prayers, the crimson-robed monks dispersed quietly.

A small gray-robed novice entered the hall with a wooden bucket and broom, stepping softly to a corner, gazing in awe at the majestic golden statue of the Wealthy Heavenly King. He held a tiny clay coffin, no bigger than his palm, and bowed deeply before it.

He whispered softly, praying with sincere devotion.

Yet the deity he beseeched was not the golden statue before him: "I humbly beg the Holy Mother of Lishan to grant me the 'Shell of Fate,' to aid me in attaining the Great Liberation Dharma!"

"I vow to take the Holy Mother of Lishan as my spiritual mother, and to enter her sacred lineage!"

"May the offering be received—"

The clay coffin in his palm, as he prayed with pure devotion, crumbled into dust, falling from his hands.

His palm was now empty.

Only a mark shaped like a "door" remained, branded upon his skin. As his gaze fell upon the door, he saw within it, lying still inside a coffin, the "Shell of Fate" he had prayed for.

……

"This woman, Bai Ruyu, has an extraordinary destiny—she is a 'Lotus Embryo Child,' with a fate weighing seven taels and seven mace. That seven taels and three mace of fate can yield seven taels and three mace of 'Fate Gold'!"

"Seven taels and three mace of Fate Gold? That’s enough for the Imperial Consort to feast on for a whole month!"

"If we marry her off, won’t she be free? No more suffering or resentment—how will we extract her Fate Gold?"

"Think of a way!"

Outside the brightly lit ancestral hall.

The man whose face resembled Zhou Chang’s—"Zhou Eryang"—squatted in the corner, laboriously building a brick wall.

He appeared to be working earnestly, but his ears were subtly perked, listening intently to the whispered conversations of the Jing-Bai clan elders inside.

"Bai Ruyu... Lotus Embryo Child..."

"If I can get hold of her, my 'Shell of Fate' will have served its true purpose."

Zhou Eryang lowered his head in deep thought.

Nearby, inside the brightly lit ancestral hall, the Jing-Bai clan elders cast a fleeting glance at Zhou Eryang, then quickly averted their eyes, all silently understanding.

The Jing-Bai clan elder standing in the center, his eyes gleaming with implication, silently formed a word with his lips to those around him: "Frame him."

……