“Is now the moment when light and shadow intersect?” Wang Chong muttered, his brows creasing.
Wang Chong didn’t know if now was that moment the Origin Immortal Lord spoke of, but his mother could not wait any longer. Moreover, the Celestial Palace’s power wasn’t just wiping away memories regarding him, it was wiping away their souls. On the streets, there were already many people with slack and unfocused gazes, though they themselves had not realized it yet.
If it were not stopped now, then he wouldn’t even be able to reach that moment where light and shadow intersected.
Moreover, Heaven was growing stronger by the day. Once he repaired the Pantheon Pearl and created another perfect avatar, he would not be as easily defeated as he had been back at the steppe.
Buzz!
Wang Chong quickly took out the Origin Immortal Lord’s silk bag.
The bag was about the size of a palm and had been exquisitely woven, with even strands of gold woven in.
As he took out the silk bag, Wang Chong also spotted the image of a black Xuan Bird atop it, the same as it had been back in the Origin Immortal Palace.
The silk bag pulsed with strange energy, and there was also a seal left by the Origin Immortal Lord. In normal circumstances, even Wang Chong would have found it hard to ‘see’ what was inside.
Of course, if Wang Chong really wanted to, with his level of cultivation, he could do it.
However, Wang Chong had always respected the Origin Immortal Lord’s orders and had not lightly touched this bag.
Now, however, Wang Chong felt a strong impulse as he gazed at the bag.
He sensed that the Origin Immortal Lord had predicted Heaven’s use of the Celestial Palace and predicted that he would be in this situation. Although the Origin Immortal Lord had not possessed the cultivation or strength to resolve this crisis, he had undoubtedly left behind clues.
More importantly, the Origin Immortal Lord had predicted his arrival in the Origin Immortal Cave more than one thousand years before the actual event. Perhaps he had even predicted when he would open this silk bag.
If that was so, opening the silk bag was actually the correct decision.
These thoughts rapidly ran through his mind, and Wang Chong soon focused his mind.
He would know whether it was right or not very soon.
Swish!
Wang Chong swiftly removed the binding thread on the bag, the sound almost inaudible. At this moment, his heart was thumping with curiosity.
The Origin Immortal Lord’s divinations were flawless, but nobody knew what would be inside the bag until it was opened.
Buzz!
As the silk bag opened up, so was the secret the Origin Immortal Lord had left within it revealed.
Even before Wang Chong could fully open the bag and see what was inside, a golden pillar of light that was the width of two fingers erupted from the bag, almost hitting Wang Chong in the face.
The beam of light focused and condensed, quickly transforming in the air until it formed into a line of words.
“This!”
Upon seeing that line of words, Wang Chong was left speechless.
Wang Chong had originally believed that the Origin Immortal Lord had left a slip of paper or something similar in the bag, or at least something that would be related to his current situation. But Wang Chong had never expected this.
‘Do not divulge the secrets of the heavens. It can be done once, but not twice.’
These were the words that the golden light from the bag had condensed into.
The words continued to slowly circle in the air, lingering like a warning.
Buzz!
After a few moments, the words turned back into a beam of light and disappeared into Wang Chong’s forehead, traveling through his meridians and into his dantian, eventually becoming a seal that floated over his dantian.
“So… now is not the time where light and shadow intersect that the Origin Immortal Lord spoke of? I opened it early?” Wang Chong muttered, somewhat disappointed.
Those words the Origin Immortal Lord had left seemed to indicate that the Origin Immortal Lord had predicted he would open the silk bag. This was what the ‘it can be done once, but not twice’ line had meant.
The secrets of heaven were infinite and were not unchanging. Though Wang Chong didn’t understand divination, he did understand the principle that they could not be lightly divulged.
“Mm? Wait!”
Wang Chong turned his attention back to the bag in his palm.
The Origin Immortal Lord’s words had seemingly indicated that the bag should be empty after the golden light had shot out, but Wang Chong could tell that there was something else in the bag.
Wang Chong quickly opened the bag fully.
At the bottom of the bag was a square object bundled in white cloth.
“This is…”
Wang Chong took the white bundle, confusion in his eyes. The bundle was very light—three or four grams. Moreover, he could not sense any energy pulses, so it wasn’t a ritual tool or something related to martial arts.
Wang Chong instinctively raised the bundle to his nose and sniffed.
“Tea leaves?”
Wang Chong’s body trembled, his face in disbelief.
Through the white cloth, Wang Chong had smelled the faint aroma of tea leaves.
The Wang Clan was a great clan, and it normally consumed all kinds of top-class tea leaves, even those used by the imperial household. But Wang Chong couldn’t match the aroma of the tea leaves to any he had smelled before. There was an indescribable sense of age to it…
The Origin Immortal Lord had been sleeping deep beneath the earth for nearly one thousand years. The tea he had placed in the bag couldn’t be from the West Lake or Longjing. It was probably some ancient tea from ages ago.
“What does the Origin Immortal Lord mean with this?”
Wang Chong lightly kneaded the bundle, feeling the tea leaves shift around within it as clouds of confusion engulfed his mind.
He had already used Psychic Energy and Stellar Energy to inspect them, and there was nothing strange about them. The Origin Immortal Lord had left him nothing more than ordinary tea leaves.
Was this intentional or an accident?
Wang Chong truly couldn’t think of how some tea leaves could help him out of his predicament.
“Let’s just try it out.”
After thinking it over for a long while, Wang Chong still failed to understand.
Tea leaves were meant to brew tea. Perhaps the tea leaves the Origin Immortal Lord had left had some ability to focus or clear the mind, or maybe some other power.
Swoosh!
Wang Chong quickly disappeared, and when he next appeared, he had a pot of piping hot water, several tea cups, and a tray.
After washing the tea and filtering it, he filled the tea cups with hot water. He watched the sword-shaped tea leaves in the cups slowly open up, and a cup of tea began to take shape.
In this quiet night, Wang Chong sat on the roof, his brow furrowed. He reached out with his right hand and took a cup of tea. He first lightly sniffed it and then took a sip. The tea leaves were bitter, and when it entered his mouth, it had a taste that was a mixture of light and bitter. It was completely different from the tea enjoyed in the current era, and it wasn’t particularly pleasing.
There was simply nothing special about the tea, and it was more fitting for the taste of the ancients.
“Such fragrant tea!”
As Wang Chong’s brows were locked together, he heard an elderly voice. Before he could react, a thin hand suddenly appeared and snatched a cup of tea from the tray.
Wang Chong raised his head in shock and saw that a thin old man in a gray robe had appeared on the roof. He had taken the cup of tea as if no one else was around and put it up to his nose. He breathed in the scent and half-closed his eyes, a contented look on his face.
“So fragrant! I didn’t think that I would be able to smel
l such a familiar scent after so long,” the man said to himself, as if Wang Chong didn’t even exist.
Wang Chong was flabbergasted. He carefully examined the elder, but this elder didn’t seem to have intense pulses of Stellar Energy. He didn’t seem like any sort of peerless expert that Wang Chong had imagined, but despite this, he had appeared on the roof without Wang Chong realizing.
It was late at night and Wang Chong had already checked that no one was around. For this gray-robed elder to appear out of nowhere was truly bizarre.
Most importantly, though this elder didn’t seem very strong, even with Wang Chong’s Grotto Heaven realm cultivation, he couldn’t see what was going on in this old man’s body.
His person seemed gloomy and unfathomable, as if some energy was keeping Wang Chong out.
Suspicious!
Very suspicious!
Numerous thoughts ran through Wang Chong’s mind, but rather than questioning the elder on his origins, he lightly pushed over the remaining half-bundle of tea leaves to the old man.
“If Senior likes it, then Senior may take the rest of the tea leaves.”
But the elder’s reaction took Wang Chong completely by surprise.
The man simply held the cup to his nose, his head tilted slightly upward with a contented look, but he seemingly had no intention of drinking the tea.
Moreover, the old man was utterly unmoved by Wang Chong’s gift of tea leaves. He appeared to be in his own world, and his eyes never even once glanced in Wang Chong’s direction.
“To smell this aroma again in the apocalyptic era, I have no more regrets.”
The gray-robed elder once more took in the scent and sighed.
Before Wang Chong could react, there was a gust of wind. Thump! The tea cup returned to the tray in front of Wang Chong.
The tea within was untouched, and the gray-robed elder had vanished without a trace.
Chapter 2334 - The Western Mausoleum? The Mysterious Gray-Robed Elder!
Chapter 2334: The Western Mausoleum? The Mysterious Gray-Robed Elder!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Wang Chong’s heart tightened. Putting down the tea cup, he stood up.
He was immensely shocked. From the moment this gray-robed elder appeared, Wang Chong had been completely focused on him, not letting down his guard in the slightest. That he had failed to realize when the gray-robed elder appeared could be put down to carelessness. But even though he was prepared now, that seemingly weak gray-robed elder had vanished right before his eyes. This was simply unbelievable.
Not even someone in the Grotto Heaven realm was capable of this.
Perhaps this gray-robed elder had used some special technique.
“Over there!”
Wang Chong’s eyes flashed as he quickly tracked him down. Several thousand feet away from him, he spotted an extremely faint figure flitting past a roof eave.
Even though it had only been for the briefest of moments, so brief that it almost seemed like an illusion, Wang Chong was certain that this was the mysterious elder.
That elder arrived and departed without a trace, and Wang Chong still had no idea who he was. But this was the only person who had appeared after he had brewed the tea leaves the Origin Immortal Lord had left him, the only person he had seen for hours.
This person also had a completely different taste for tea than anyone else, so he was the most suspicious person, the only clue Wang Chong had.
Whoosh!
Waving his sleeve, Wang Chong took the tea and the tea leaves into the halo divine tool and left the roof in pursuit of the elder.
A few moments later, Wang Chong grimaced.
“So fast!”
He had believed that he could easily catch up, but it turned out that the elder was constantly changing positions. Even with Wang Chong’s speed, he had almost lost him. Every time, he was just barely keeping up to that blurry figure.
It would be understandable if this was an expert on Heaven’s level, but Wang Chong couldn’t sense any powerful pulses of energy from him.
There was someone in the capital that he couldn’t keep up with? This matter was getting stranger and stranger.
His constant shifting around made it seem like he had no specific destination. Vermillion Bird Street, Stone Dragon Street, Green Moss Street… Wang Chong followed him through more than half of the capital.
The gray-robed elder didn’t linger on the street. At times, he would blink away, and Wang Chong would spot him on a roof, or perhaps on a large, flourishing scholar tree, or perhaps within a mansion used by a rich merchant, quietly staring at the calm lake in the garden and seemingly lost in thought.
“Just what is he up to?”
Wang Chong grew more and more suspicious. This man’s movements were growing increasingly bizarre.
If this man hadn’t come for the tea, Wang Chong would have never paid any attention to these places within the vast capital.
But regardless of the place, the elder never lingered for long. Not long after Wang Chong caught up, the gray-robed elder would disappear.
Buzz!
As Wang Chong was thinking, the gray-robed elder disappeared again, but this time was different. This time, he vanished completely, disappearing without a trace like a bubble popping out of existence.
“Not good!”
Wang Chong was aghast. He immediately jumped out from the shadows, unleashing his Psychic Energy without any attempt to conceal himself.
But there was nothing around him.
He spread out his sense for tens of thousands of feet, but he could not sense any trace of the elder.
“How could it be like this?”
Wang Chong jumped high into the sky, hoping to find something from a higher vantage point.
The darkness was tinged with a chill, and the capital was still and quiet. He could see all of the buildings spread out before him, but there was no sign of the elder on the streets, roofs, or residences.
It was like he had truly disappeared!
Wang Chong began to panic.
If the gray-robed elder disappeared, the last thread the Origin Immortal Lord had left him would be cut.
Bang!
Wang Chong used the power of spacetime, spreading out Halos of Spacetime from his body. Wang Chong utilized every power available to him to track down the elder.
“True World!
“Stone of Destiny, activate the highest privilege, the Archon of Destiny!”
With winds howling around him, Wang Chong floated high in the sky and took in the entire world.
A few moments later, through the Stone of Destiny, Wang Chong finally found a trace of the gray-robed elder.
“Over there!”
At the edge of the Great Tang Imperial Palace, Wang Chong caught a sliver of his aura, a very faint gray sliver of energy. It had quickly vanished, but Wang Chong was certain that it belonged to the gray-robed elder.
However, Wang Chong soon frowned.
“What’s going on? He went to the Imperial Palace?”
In the True World state, Wang Chong was able to trace the elder’s journey. He had been on the streets outside the Imperial Palace, and then he had jumped onto the wall and vanished within.
Wang Chong had wanted to know the elder’s background the moment he had appeared, but he had never imagined that this person would disappear into the Great Tang Imperial Palace, one of the most heavily guarded places in the world.
But whether it was the Imperial Army, the city guard, or the Dragon Guards, no one had noticed this elder entering the Imperial Palace.
Amateurs hid in the wilderness while masters hid in court. Wang Chong had never imagined that this person would have emerged from the Imperial Palace.
As the most illustrious subject of the Great Tang, Wang Chong had often been to the Imperial Palace. During the Rebellion of the Three Princes, Wang Chong had even infiltrated the place. He could not be considered a stranger to
the palace.
Moreover, the Sage Emperor had presided over the Imperial Palace, and the place was still guarded by the powerful Dragon Guards and imperial servitors. Besides that, the Imperial Palace was frequently patrolled. It should have been impossible for someone to hide in the palace.
For a few moments, Wang Chong floated in the air, dumbfounded.
Could he be an imperial servitor?
Wang Chong narrowed his eyes as the thought occurred to him, but he quickly rejected the idea. Putting aside the fact that the servitors did not have such high levels of cultivation, imperial servitors had tokens on their waists, and they had no need to enter the palace by jumping over the wall.
So is he someone from the Celestial God Organization? Wang Chong’s mind immediately went to another possibility.
The capital was no longer what it once was. The Sage Emperor had passed away and the entire capital, including the Imperial Palace, was completely under Heaven’s control. In secret, this place had already become the territory of the Celestial God Organization.
This gray-robed elder was very strange, but all of it could be explained if he was part of the Celestial God Organization.
But Wang Chong quickly shook his head again.
He was mortal foes with Heaven, and after what had happened on the steppe, no one from the Celestial God Organization would come to see him in secret. More importantly, this person didn’t seem like a member of the Celestial God Organization.
This was intuition!
The gray-robed elder was not part of the Celestial God Organization!
However, this conclusion only made the gray-robed elder seem even stranger.
Wang Chong couldn’t think of a party in the capital besides his own side and the Celestial God Organization, much less one that was connected to the Origin Immortal Lord’s prophecy.
Wang Chong was growing more and more curious.
“Let’s go!”
Wang Chong quickly suppressed these thoughts and entered the Imperial Palace.
The Imperial Palace was quiet, the golden-armored Imperial Army soldiers manning their posts. Even though it was affected by the Celestial Palace, the Imperial Palace was still the center of the realm and heavily guarded.
Wang Chong quickly landed on a cinnabar wall.
The Human Emperor c1-2382 Page 1399
