After the Immortal Disappeared

Wen Daolun looked him up and down, stroking his long beard. "Very well. You'll ride back with me in a bit."

This was his way of agreeing.

The two of them then stood to the side, waiting for the ceremony to conclude.

Wen Daolun had to wait for seven sticks of High Incense to burn completely before he could leave. By then, the commoners' worship would also be mostly over.

Hee Lingchuan quietly asked his companion, "Why does Wen Daolun owe you a favor?"

"He occasionally visits Shumin Academy."

"...To teach children?" 'He's a trusted confidant of Commander Zhong. Does he have nothing better to do than watch a flock of chirping children?'

"We teach more than just children." Sunx Fuling smiled. "Shumin Academy is the best official school in Panlong City. He comes to play chess with an old friend, who happens to be my esteemed teacher, Xuu Shichu. He came again two months ago, but my teacher wasn't there, so I played a few games with him."

"Mr. Wen said that if I won, he would owe me a favor. And so..." She shrugged. "I won two out of three."

"You used such a valuable favor on me?" Hee Lingchuan was touched.

"Favors are meant to be circulated, not just spent and forgotten." Sunx Fuling glanced at him. "Now you're the one who owes me."

"No problem." He patted his chest. "Anytime you need it."

With nothing else to do, Hee Lingchuan strolled to the edge of the Divine Descent Platform and looked down.

'Damn.' The cliff face was scorched black, with an occasional spark of electricity still arcing across it. Plants must have grown on this rock once, but after three strikes of Celestial Thunder, nothing was left but a barren slate.

Hee Lingchuan also saw marks from lightning strikes on some of the rocks, but they were very old.

"I just heard in the sacrificial text that the Deities sent down a Thunderbolt to take the offerings." Hee Lingchuan pointed down. "Was all this caused by that Thunderbolt?" 'Even solid rock was melted; no living thing could have survived.'

"Yes. Who else but the Deities could accomplish such a feat?" Sunx Fuling said languidly. "When those Thunderbolts struck, they brought us not only terror, but also precious confidence."

"Because the Deities are on our side?"

"Of course." Sunx Fuling sighed. "You weren't in Panlong City back then, so you don't know how dejected and desperate everyone was... We were once again cast aside by our motherland like a worn-out shoe. Even Commander Zhong fell gravely ill from anger."

After Panlong City became an enclave, Zhong Shengguang led his Followers to defend the Panlong Wasteland. They held out for twelve years. When the war finally eased, Panlong City reconnected with the Xiluo Kingdom.

But the good times were short-lived. War broke out again less than a year later, and the weak Xiluo Kingdom lost contact with Panlong City once more. It even considered ceding Panlong City to the Baling Kingdom.

This was a massive blow to Panlong City. To hold out for twelve years, surrounded by enemies, only to end up with this result.

How many twelve years does a person get in a lifetime?

One can only imagine the dejection that swept through all of Panlong City.

In that situation, if the Deities hadn't stepped up to show their support with an astonishing Miracle to boost morale, Panlong City would have likely collapsed on its own, without the enemy even needing to lift a finger.

Hee Lingchuan looked at the altar again.

The thanksgiving ceremony three years ago was the turning point for the entire Panlong Wasteland. From that day on, everything changed.

After a few more moments, the last stick of incense was nearly burnt out. Wen Daolun descended from the altar and came over in person. "Alright, join me in my carriage."

His time was precious, and he intended to use the return journey to answer Hee Lingchuan's questions.

At that moment, however, Hee Lingchuan pointed below the cliff. "Look, there's something living down there!"

The Wilderness directly below the Divine Descent Platform had once been covered in plants, but the three Thunderbolts had scorched even the ground black.

Therefore, the figure running across this barren, scorched earth was especially conspicuous.

Thanks to his diligent training, Hee Lingchuan's eyesight had long since improved. Despite the distance of several dozen yards, he could still make out that the small black dot below was sniffing around everywhere and had a tail.

Wen Daolun also looked down and scoffed, "Still up to no good."

"Is that a Jindu Ghost Child too?"

"It is. The Great Wind Army troops I stationed below are already in pursuit."

Sure enough, no sooner had he spoken than dozens of people emerged from the bushes below, surrounding the black dot.

"Why do these monsters go down there?"

Wen Daolun replied casually, "They want to sense the aura of the Deities."

'That was a puzzling statement. The aura of the Deities?'

'And how did he know to set an ambush here in advance?'

'It seems Panlong City is quite knowledgeable about the Jindu Ghost Children.'

Hee Lingchuan didn't ask, because Wen Daolun clapped his hands and said, "Let's go."

The two boarded the carriage with Wen Daolun, and their own carriage followed behind.

Wen Daolun's carriage was more spacious, furnished with soft cushions for comfort, a charcoal brazier, and a small table. Compared to the opulent rigs of wealthy families, this was already quite plain and simple.

Once the three were seated and the carriage began to move, Wen Daolun spoke up. "Let me state this upfront, lest Xuu Shichu find fault with me later. The premise that destiny is fixed relies on the heavens operating as they should. However, since the world-altering cataclysm shook the very Origin, there's no telling how accurate any method of divination or calculation can be."

He was being blunt: ever since the great cataclysm three thousand years ago, methods of divination had become unreliable.

Hee Lingchuan nodded. It wasn't the first time he'd heard such a claim.

Wen Daolun then asked for Hee Lingchuan's eight characters of birth. Just as Hee Lingchuan was about to state them, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

'Crap! He was born more than a hundred years after Panlong City's fall!'

'If he gave his real birth date, the discrepancy would be a little too big to explain.'

'Why hadn't he thought of this beforehand?'

He could only stammer, "I-I'm not sure. I was adopted."

"You don't know your birth characters?" Wen Daolun thought for a moment, then leaned in to examine his face, then his hands. He took his pulse and even pulled back his eyelids for a look.

'This whole routine was no different from the four diagnostic methods of an old traditional physician.'

Wen Daolun casually added a piece of charcoal to the brazier before saying, "Judging by your facial features, you don't seem like someone who grew up without parents!"

"Perhaps they're still alive?" Hee Lingchuan forced himself to lie, though he was groaning inwardly. 'This is just like seeing a doctor. If I hide things from him, how can I trust his diagnosis?'

"Your fortune is abundant and your future is limitless. At the very least, you have the makings of a great general. And you call this a terrible fate? If so, then common people would have no hope of survival at all."

'So there was some basis for Hee Chunhua's constant talk about his eldest son being a lucky charm.' Hee Lingchuan and Sunx Fuling exchanged a look. "The one who did my reading was a Great Demon with over three hundred years of Daoist Practice. It has studied the *Celestial River Collection* passed down by Master Dongli for many years, and it left me with a two-line verse."

"Master Dongli?" Wen Daolun was taken aback and thought for a long while. "Master Dongli of the Great Returning Sect?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes." 'Master Dongli himself wrote in his Cave Mansion that it was a gift to posterity. How could it be wrong?' "It stumbled upon the Cave Mansion where Master Dongli achieved his final transcendence and obtained his legacy."

"In the post-Spiritual Qi era, he was indeed a renowned figure." Wen Daolun asked for the two-line verse and began to study it carefully.

"'Body like a cage... a cage...'" He mulled it over for a long while, then frowned. "Could it also be a case of 'the body as a prison'?"

Hee Lingchuan immediately asked, "What does that mean?" He hadn't missed the word "also."

Wen Daolun sighed. "From the standpoint of fortune alone, you are already far beyond the ordinary. To have such luck here in the Panlong Wasteland is truly bizarre. Think about it yourself—haven't you had Smooth Sailing your whole life?"

"Yes." 'The original owner of this body really did grow up in comfort, just eating, drinking, and playing.'

"Without your birth characters, I can't deduce your Palace of Life, which makes this difficult to calculate. If your fortune is to turn from good to ill, there must be a crucial turning point, but I don't see one. Yet the verse emphasizes 'a cuckoo in the magpie's nest' and 'body like a cage.' Why single those phrases out?"

Hee Lingchuan adopted an introspective posture. The main reason he took the Old Turtle Demon's prophecy so seriously was because of the phrase "a cuckoo in the magpie's nest."

'He was an outsider. No one else in this world should have known that.'

Wen Daolun was lost in thought for a long time. He suddenly opened the carriage curtain and gave a few instructions to someone outside.

A few moments later, several Personal Guards came over with a large tarp and draped it over the entire carriage.

It blocked the doors and windows completely, letting only a sliver of light filter through.

"There is another method. Let's give it a try." He suddenly lit a thin stick of incense and had Sunx Fuling hold it.

The incense was a pale cyan color and had a particularly soothing scent.

Wen Daolun then took a small piece of wood from his robes and blew on it lightly.

The piece of wood looked perfectly ordinary, the kind you could find anywhere. It seemed to bear traces of where moss once grew and had two small holes in it.

After he blew on it, a white shadow unexpectedly floated out of the holes in the wood.

Once it took shape, it turned out to be a tiny figure, half the size of a palm, with the face of a little girl. After floating out, it eagerly moved to inhale the smoke from the incense in Sunx Fuling's hand, a look of bliss appearing on its face.

'A soul emerging from a piece of wood?' Hee Lingchuan re-examined the piece of wood. 'There aren't many Soul Artifacts that can house the Undead. Could this be seabed wood?'

"This is a Tong Kao, formed from the coalesced Dead Souls of unfortunate children who died young but held no malice in their hearts." Wen Daolun tapped his own temple. "Relax your mind. Don't resist. I'm going to let it enter your Sea of Consciousness and take a look."

'Sea of Consciousness?' Hee Lingchuan thought of the glowing mark.

He closed his eyes. The Tong Kao flew a circle around him and then drilled into his ear.

To Hee Lingchuan, the sensation was like inhaling mint, a sudden coolness spreading through his entire mind.

But that was all. He didn't feel the agony he had during the Celestial God's invasion.

Ten breaths passed.

Twenty breaths passed.

Hee Lingchuan opened his eyes and saw the other two staring at him intently in the dim light of the carriage.

Wen Daolun seemed a little surprised. "You can open your eyes? What do you feel right now?"

"My head felt cool for a second, and then nothing."

Wen Daolun seemed unconvinced and pressed him, "No pain? You didn't see any Illusions?"

Hee Lingchuan shook his head.

After another dozen or so breaths, a wisp of white mist floated out of his ear and transformed back into the little girl's spirit in mid-air.

She didn't appear to be harmed, and Hee Lingchuan breathed a silent sigh of relief. 'Is it because her method of visiting was less brutish than the Celestial God's last time, so the Rebound Power she suffered was also smaller?'

She rushed to Wen Daolun's ear and began chattering away at him. Strangely, Hee Lingchuan couldn't hear a single sound, as if he were watching a silent movie.