Chapter 642: Bearing the World

Lao Jun strode toward the outside of the residential area.

Yu Lin followed behind him, the two of them one in front of the other, passing through the residential area gate, crossing the road, and turning into a narrow alley.

The alley wasn't deep; at its end lay a snack street.

The street wasn't long, its sides packed with stalls—barbecue, spicy hot pot, stir-fried noodles, and fried dough snacks—heat mingling with oil smoke drifting upward.

The streetlights cast a dim yellow glow, warming every face.

Lao Jun stopped in front of a barbecue stall.

The stall wasn't large, with a few plastic tables and chairs, a freezer, and a grill.

The boss was a young man wearing an apron, currently flipping skewers.

Seeing Yu Lin and Lao Jun, he wiped his hands, walked over, and said with a smile, "Good‑looking sir, uh, and this Daoist priest, what would you like to eat? Any dietary restrictions?"

Lao Jun took the menu, glanced at it, and pointed a few times with his hand.

"This one, and this one—no, everything else."

"Medium spicy."

"And three more beers, please make them ice‑cold."

He put the menu down, pointed at Yu Lin, and said, "That's it—he'll pay."

The young man nodded, chuckled "Sure thing," and turned to prepare the order.

Yu Lin pulled out a plastic chair and sat down; Lao Jun also sat, leaning his folding table and cloth bundle against the chair beside him.

The young man quickly brought over three beers and stacked them beside the table.

Lao Jun picked up a bottle, opened the cap with his teeth, and took a gulp.

Yu Lin watched him and then spoke:

"Lao Jun, you didn't seek me out just for a meal, did you?"

Lao Jun set down the bottle, wiped his mouth, and smiled.

"Of course. Have you noticed any changes in the world?"

Yu Lin did not answer.

He turned his head and looked around.

On the snack street people came and went—some were eating skewers, some waiting for a table, some scanning to pay.

The streetlights stretched the crowd's shadows long, dragging them across the ground where they overlapped with the shadows of the nearby tables.

It seemed nothing was different.

The next moment.

A faint light shone in his eyes.

Those scenes began to peel away.

Human outlines turned into puffs of qi, tables and chairs into lines, and streetlights into light dots.

Everything was simplifying, everything was returning.

Color faded, shapes blurred, texture vanished.

The snack street disappeared, the residential area vanished, the city was gone.

Yu Lin saw chaos—grayish, shapeless, boundless, with no up, down, left, or right.

But the chaos was incomplete.

It was missing pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle lacking a few parts, like a river cut off!

The edges of the gaps writhed and surged, trying to fill themselves—but they couldn't.

The Grand Dao's principles streamed out of the gaps, endless, with no loop, like water poured into a bottomless pit!

One could say the present world is collapsing bit by bit, so slowly that it's imperceptible.

Yet Yu Lin could see that the string holding the world's stability had been stretched to its limit, ready to snap at any moment.

But it hadn't snapped.

Something was supporting it, pulling it, yanking it back!

The world was in a strange state, like a person standing on a cliff edge with half their body already over, yet a hand gripped their shirttail!

Lao Jun's voice came from beside him:

"Not just that—look again."

Yu Lin didn't withdraw his gaze; he kept looking inward.

Phantoms began to appear.

One world, two worlds, three worlds, countless worlds!!

They lay layered upon each other, like crumpled paper balls, like stacked transparent sheets!

Some worlds were huge, encompassing everything; some were tiny, mere points.

Some worlds were evolving, from chaos to order, from simple to complex; others were already dead, gray and dim, without light or sound.

Yet in the end they all merged together, flowing into this reality and becoming part of it!

Fragments of those worlds still lingered, embedded in the seams of reality!

Yu Lin withdrew his sight.

The streetlamp was still that streetlamp, the snack street still that snack street, Lao Jun still sat opposite him, holding a bottle, waiting for his answer.

Yu Lin felt a hint of speculation:

"Are these all worlds you've opened up?"

"Just like when you once refined a pill using an entire world—as an experiment?"

"Not exactly." Lao Jun set down the bottle and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.

The phantom images of those worlds slowly unfolded before Yu Lin's eyes, like an endless scroll.

Some worlds grew themselves out of chaos, with no gods, no immortals, and no interference from any power.

Chaos churned for untold hundreds of millions of years, then one day it suddenly settled, the clear and turbid separated, and heaven and earth took shape.

Such worlds were rough and unstable, liable to collapse at any moment, but some endured, slowly gaining mountains and rivers, flora and fauna.

Some worlds were opened up by immortals and gods, like the Heavenly Court, like Heaven, like those blessed caverns hidden deep in the void.

When they opened up the world, they expended great effort, splitting chaos, propping up heaven and earth, fixing the sun, moon, and stars, and establishing the laws of the Great Dao.

Such worlds were stable, orderly, with every blade of grass and tree within the rules.

Moreover, some worlds have obscure origins—no one knows where they came from or who made them.

They suddenly appeared, lodged in the cracks of reality, like wild grass growing from stone crevices—no one waters them, no one fertilizes them; they live and die on their own.

Together, these worlds constitute the present world.

Lao Jun said, "For example, the Heavenly Court and Heaven, the Underworld and Hell—each is a world in itself."

"They overlap, yet remain separate, like countless bubbles pressed together."

"There is a cord that runs through all these bubbles, stringing them together so they do not scatter."

"With this cord, the present world can bear so many layered worlds, each in its place, without interfering with one another."

"But, now."

"That cord has departed."

Yu Lin did not speak.

The oil smoke from the barbecue stall drifted over from the grill, turning under the streetlamp into puffs of white mist.

The guests at the neighboring table were throwing fists, their voices loud, their cups clinking.

Lao Jun picked up the bottle, took another swig, and when he set it down the base knocked on the tabletop with a dull thud.

"We too must act to maintain stability."

Yu Lin looked at him and suddenly said:

"Could it be that I am the cord?"

Lao Jun gave no answer.

The young man at the barbecue stall came over with a large tray, laying out plate after plate of skewers—lamb, beef, chicken wings, chives, eggplant, golden needle mushrooms—filling half the table.

He set down the last plate, said "Please enjoy," and turned to leave.

Lao Jun picked up a skewer of lamb, took a bite, and chewed:

Let's eat first.