Ze Tian Ji

Edited by: Michyrr

The white cloud dispersed over a verdant valley.

The valley was extremely peaceful and serene, with fantastically shaped trees and vines growing in abundance. The forests by the cliffs would occasionally resound with the low howls of some powerful monster. But those monsters did not dare approach this place, because this place contained a lofty, majestic, and ancient Buddhist temple, and also because this ancient temple served as residence to two people.

The old man asked in confusion, "We’ve secluded ourselves for several centuries and were able to go out after such difficulty, and we return just like that?"

The other man smiled and said, "It wasn’t completely without gain. At least we got a glance at that youth."

The elder replied, "Could it be that Sir especially went out to see that youth?"

The man replied, "That youth is Shang’s disciple and also cared for by Yin. Little Tianhai even requested for Heavenly Secrets to come over especially to examine him. It’s hard for me to not be curious."

The old man replied, "Sir is certainly not the type of person who will step back into the secular world out of curiosity."

The man said, "That youth obtained my notebook and Heavenly Tome Monolith, and brought down a night of starlight in the Mausoleum of Books. Many people say that he’s very similar to me from the past, which is naturally different from my view."

The old man asked, "Then what did Sir see?"

The man’s expression grew solemn. "That youth...will soon die."

The old man was flabbergasted by this statement. "Then what should be done?"

The man walked into the main hall of the ancient temple and gazed at the dilapidated Great Buddha. "Everyone wishes to defy the heavens and change fate, but how could they know that all causes and effects lie within the causes and effects themselves. The more one wants to change fate, the more impossible it is to pull away from the river of fate. I cannot see how his fate will ultimately turn out. In the end, one must still look at him."

"Then what about Qiushan Jun and Xu Yourong? When does Sir plan to go see them?"

"We’ll talk about that later." The man glanced out of the temple at the sky and warned, "It’s going to rain. Quickly finish off today’s painting."

This ancient temple’s exterior was extremely run-down, seemingly abandoned for countless years, and the same could be said for the Buddhist images in the various halls of the temple. But the succession of the Buddhist school on the continent had long since been severed, and it was utterly unheard of amongst the common people. Thus, this sort of scene was actually quite commonplace. In reality, that this ancient Buddhist temple could continue to exist until now was the truly puzzling matter here.

However, the paintings on the stone walls of the temple were extremely complete and even seemed very new. It was obvious that they had only been painted in these past few years.

The paintings on the wall were all extremely beautiful. It could even be said that it would be simply impossible to find such an outstanding painter in the world today.

If Chen Changsheng were to see these wall paintings, he would assuredly think of those portraits in the Lingyan Pavilion.

The old man stood on a wooden frame, holding a painting brush and preparing to get to work. In the end, however, he still could not hold himself back. "Back there, you really should have tried."

The other man sat on a broken bell in the front of the hall, his hand carrying a pot of spring water that he was slowly drinking from. Upon hearing this, he smiled and said, "I can’t even beat him."”

The old man put down his paintbrush and gazed out of the hall, saying, "Last year, Su Li was outside Xuelao City..."

The other man did not reply, only quietly looked into the distance.

The old man sighed internally and no longer continued to ask.

At the time, the Demon Lord had been within Xuelao City, Black Robe without. How would he have told him to attack? How could he have possibly attacked?

......

......

On the shore of the Red River, on the walls of White Emperor City, the cloud slowly descended and then vanished without a trace, but it was not known whether this was lucky or inauspicious.

On the Dew Platform, the Tianhai Divine Empress no longer looked northward. Turning, she descended down the platform.

In the depths of the Li Palace, the Pope gazed at the Green Leaf in contemplation. In terms of both posture and expression, nothing had changed.

The darkness enveloping Mount Han slowly tore apart and drifted far away, the heavens and earth returned to day once more. By the lake at the summit, the Elder of Heavenly Secrets lightly wiped away the blood at his lips. As he gazed into the depths of the snowy plains far north beyond the mountains, his ancient eyes seemed a tinge muddy, somewhat unable to see clearly the way ahead.

On the southern foothills of Mount Han, a scribe appeared, with a red flower tied to his little finger. Stained by the dust of several thousand li, it was no longer as gaudy. A man wearing a bamboo hat appeared in the small village beyond Mount Han’s gateway, his cheeks corroded by the sea breeze and extremely solemn. They had come late—the middle-aged scholar had already left Mount Han—but they did not just leave. Instead, along with those two Prefects of the Orthodoxy wielding the precious treasures of the Orthodoxy, they vigilantly stood watch around Mount Han, guarding against possible changes.

On the long battlefront in the north of the continent, the Great Zhou Northern Army and the cultivating experts dispatched from the southern sects and families to assist the northerners received secret orders from their respective commanders to move out, and began to nervously prepare for battle. The demi-human army began to move along the Red River, proceeding towards the snowy plains in the northwest. On the way, they slaughtered a small tribe of demons.

Whether it was the Divine Generals of the Great Zhou Imperial Court that had sent out the order to mobilize or the masters of the various sects and families of the south, none of them knew the cause of all this. The sounds of discussion could be heard everywhere in those military headquarters and caves. The mood was abnormally tense, causing extreme unease.

As for those people in the small village outside Mount Han and the denizens of the capital, they were completely unaware of all these events. As normal, they ate, labored, and lived, not even able to imagine that in these seemingly normal summer days, the war between the demons and the alliance of humans and demi-humans was about to break out once more after one thousand years.

All of this was just because...the Demon Lord had left Xuelao City.

He had gone to Mount Han, and then left Mount Han.

......

......

The people who knew that the Demon Lord had stepped back into the Central Plains were extremely few in number.

Even fewer people knew that after the Demon Lord left Mount Han, on his way back to Xuelao City, he encountered a person on the snowy plains.

Only after many years did the common people come to know of this meeting, but this was actually the most important meeting in all of this grand event.

No appointment had been made, but this was no chance encounter.

This person had waited in the snowy plains for the Demon Lord for a very long time.

Wind and snow filled the sky and this person was white all over. From his hair to his clothes, from his brows to his lips, all of it was white.

He was not stained white from the snow. This white was even whiter than snow, so white that it was uncomfortable, white to the extreme.

A person that was able to calculate the Demon Lord’s return route and wait for him midway, that dared to wait in this place for him—even looking over the past thousand years, there were not many people capable of this feat.

To be more precise, this was not a human, but a great demi-human with world-shaking cultivation.

The White Emperor of the west.

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......

A thousand years ago, the demons went south and the continent raged in chaos. Experts emerged in great numbers and left behind countless battles that would go down in history. Amongst them, the most famous were naturally the battle in Luoyang between Zhou Dufu and Emperor Taizong as well as the mortal battle between him and the Demon Lord. But there was one more secret battle which, in terms of fighting strength and the bitterness of battle, was absolutely not any less than these other two battles. This was the battle of supreme experts under the starry sky in the Garden of Zhou between Chen Xuanba and Zhou Dufu.

With Chen Xuanba’s death in battle, Zhou Dufu’s disappearance, and Emperor Taizong’s return to the sea of stars, of the four supreme experts of the past, only the Demon Lord remained. In the following one thousand years, no such heaven-shaking battles occurred, nor even a battle that approached that level.

Until today, this meeting in these plains in which wind and snow intermingled.

Since they had met, they would naturally fight.

......