When Mo Xi awoke from his dizziness, he found himself surrounded by darkness.
He opened his eyes. A dull pain in his chest felt as though a sharp cone had viciously pierced his heart. Before his eyes was still Gu Mang’s face from that final moment, stained with blood and tears, yet smiling as he looked at him.
He closed his eyes, and scalding tears streamed down his cheeks.
—But his task was not yet finished. Gu Mang had already sacrificed his flesh, blood, and bones to forge this path. Now that Gu Mang was gone, he would complete the unfinished wish for his beloved.
Even if he was already in agony as though being slowly tortured to death.
His throat moved as he swallowed down endless bitterness. Slowly, he sat up from the ground.
Yes, it was not over yet. This was not the end.
Gu Mang was gone, but Chonghua still had him. The Nine Provinces still had him. As long as he remained alive, Gu Mang had not completely departed. He would take up Gu Mang’s remaining ashes and carry them onward until he too was buried upon this path.
With reddened eyes, he slowly looked around.
Here, heaven and earth had no boundaries. This place was like the primordial chaos before Pangu had separated the heavens and earth. The place where he lay seemed to be the surface of water, yet a person would not sink. It seemed like a sheet of ice, yet ripples continuously shimmered across it.
He lowered his head and saw his reflection in the lake water. But strangely, several points of purplish-black shattered light floated around his reflection. Those dark lights continuously drifted away from his chest, only to quickly disappear.
Apart from that, there was also a huge, indistinct silver-white shadow writhing about.
He could not make out what exactly it was. He only knew that it was enormous, and its outline looked somewhat like his divine weapon, Tuntian.
“That is indeed your weapon, the divine weapon Tuntian.”
Suddenly, a solemn and imposing voice sounded behind him.
Mo Xi abruptly turned around and saw a man in white standing at the far end of the darkness, his robes fluttering in the air.
The man was handsome and upright, his bearing stern and inviolable. A faint, elegant immortal mist drifted around him, blurring his features until they could not be seen clearly. Only vaguely could Mo Xi make out his deep-set features and skin like cold jade. He was clearly an exceptionally valiant man.
Mo Xi froze, unable to understand how the man could see through his thoughts.
He could not help asking, “Who are you?”
The man did not answer.
Mo Xi rose and walked toward him, only to discover that no matter how many steps he took, the man always maintained exactly the same distance from him, as though he could never draw any closer.
Mo Xi’s mood was already bleak, and he had no desire to get entangled in this. He stopped again and asked, “Where is this?”
This time, the man answered.
“You are inside this Reversing Stone. The universe within this stone has no connection to the Six Realms. It is another heaven and earth.”
Mo Xi closed his eyes briefly. Suppressing the throbbing pain at his temples, he gritted his teeth and said, “Are you the immortal god in charge of this stone?”
“More or less. You need not ask about my identity. I am merely a strand of the True God’s spiritual power, left behind to guard this Reversing Stone. Who my true body is has no meaning to you.”
There truly were gods here.
But after everything that had happened because of the Reversing Stone, Mo Xi no longer felt any reverence toward the gods. Thus, facing the god of the Reversing Stone, he merely said coldly, “I have nothing to say to you. Send me back.”
The god shook his head. “You still cannot leave.”
Mo Xi, overcome by grief and anger, shouted harshly, “What more do you want?!”
Despite Mo Xi’s confrontation, the god’s spiritual power did not take offense. He merely seemed to look at him with some sorrow, or perhaps without much emotion at all.
After a long while, he said, “Mo Xi, you need not hate me so much. Your destiny is not under my control. I am merely spiritual power left inside this stone by the True God. Since you have completed the destiny of the Reversing Stone, I have fulfilled my duty as well. In truth, you have done me a favor.”
“A favor…”
The two words lingered between his teeth before finally turning into a cold laugh.
Mo Xi’s eyes were red, blood vessels showing within them. In a hoarse voice, he said, “Fine. Repay that favor, then. Put an end to all of this. Gu Mang, Lu Zhanxing, and all those nameless soldiers whom no one even remembers… Too many people have died over these hundreds of years.”
He looked at the faint, indistinct phantom of the god.
“If you are a god, you should have seen it long ago.”
“…Yes.”
“Then why won’t you end it!! You stand by and watch from the sidelines—how are you any different from the demons?!”
The god’s spirit closed his eyes. At first, he seemed unwilling to answer. But after remaining silent for a while, he finally said, “Mo Xi, the gods of Heaven cannot save people. They can only light the lamp, while people save themselves. And the reason I have summoned you into the world within this Reversing Stone is precisely to tell you that all of this is about to end. Only the final step remains.”
“Hua Po’an has lived in this world for several hundred years. He has fused and tempered himself with the demon, and is no longer a living human being. I returned to the past originally to destroy the Blood Demon Beast’s power, but in the end, I was told that the Reversing Stone has no such function at all—tell me, then, how are we supposed to save ourselves?”
He questioned the god step by step, and the god listened to every word.
Finally, the god’s spiritual power sighed and said, “I know there is resentment and hatred in your heart. I will not try to persuade you further, but…”
He paused, then said to Mo Xi, “Hua Po’an is not invincible. His power is bound to the Blood Demon Beast, and I summoned you here precisely to tell you the method of breaking the power of his demon beast.”
Mo Xi fell silent, gritting his teeth as he endured his endless rage.
“…Fine. Tell me.”
“The method lies in this,” the god said. “You need to know what happened in your own past.”
Mo Xi was stunned. “My own past?”
The god gently swept out his broad sleeve and pointed toward the surface of the lake, where ripples rose despite the absence of wind.
“Yes. The Reversing Stone can illuminate a person’s soul. Your body is like a vessel, carrying all the upheavals you have experienced throughout your life, all the love and hatred you have received. Here, right beneath your feet, everything can be reflected.”
Mo Xi lowered his head again.
The reflection meant himself.
The whale-like phantom represented his most powerful weapon.
But what were those dark wisps that spilled from his chest and vanished in an instant?
“That is the demonic parasite that Murong Chen planted inside your body before.”
When he said this, Mo Xi remembered.
This should be the control parasite that Mengze had supposedly removed. On the day of the forced palace coup at the Golden Hall, Murong Mengze had once said that when she was treating Mo Xi after Gu Mang had severely injured him during the Battle of Dongting Waters, she had discovered this curse and secretly removed it behind Murong Chen’s back.
For this, her spiritual core had been completely damaged, and afterward she could never again use any powerful spells.
His thoughts seemed to be projected into the god’s eyes word for word.
The god said, “You are mistaken. The demonic parasite was never removed by Murong Mengze.”
Mo Xi abruptly raised his head. “What?”
The god’s spirit repeated, “The demonic parasite was never removed by Murong Mengze.”
“……”
“The person who truly removed the parasite for you cut open your chest and dispelled the demonic curse. But at that time, he was in the enemy camp. First, he could not let Murong Chen discover that he had done such a thing. Second, he could not remain alone with you for too long under the eyes of the people of Liao. Therefore, he could only resort to this method: he discussed it with Murong Mengze and asked her to keep the secret.”
Mo Xi felt as though all the blood in his body had rushed to his head.
His mind gave a loud buzz. His fingers trembled as he stammered, “What… did you say?”
“That stab Gu Mang drove straight into your chest during the Battle of Dongting Waters was not without reason.”
“!!”
“While investigating the Liao spies, he realized that Murong Chen had previously harmed you in secret. That was why, during that particular battle, he deliberately lured you onto the warship and stabbed you until you were seriously wounded and unconscious.”
“After you awoke, what you saw was Murong Mengze arriving to provide assistance and taking you back to the military camp. She healed your wounds at the cost of her spiritual core shattering. But the truth was…” The god paused before saying, “After you lost consciousness, Gu Mang took you into the hidden chamber of the warship and removed the demonic poison from you. He deliberately allowed Murong Mengze to fight her way through the encirclement—so that he could hand you over to her.”
Mo Xi’s face was as pale as snow, his blood seeming to freeze into ice.
What…?
“Gu Mang knew very well what kind of person Murong Mengze was. She had never been simple. She possessed ambition and political cunning. Although she was also a cold-blooded and ruthless imperial type, at least she was not as insane as her elder brother.
“Gu Mang also knew that to Murong Mengze, you were an enormous source of support. She would do anything she could to win you over. Therefore, even if this freely bestowed favor carried danger, she would certainly accept it.”
Mo Xi felt as though his throat had been frozen solid.
After a long time, he heard an extremely hoarse voice speaking.
The voice was so unfamiliar that for a moment, he did not realize that he himself was the one speaking.
He asked, “So… the so-called debt of gratitude for saving my life… was never… never Mengze…? It was Gu Mang who had her take his place…?”
“He had no choice but to do so,” the god said. “He wanted you to hate him. He wanted you to receive Murong Mengze’s protection. He also wanted you to never again be controlled by Murong Chen in the future. Aside from this, he had no other way.”
“…So Mengze… her spiritual core also never…”
“That is right. She was never injured. She is a medicine cultivator, and she is also the person in charge of Shennong Terrace. Creating a false image of weakness for herself was extremely easy. Among the mortals of this world, only two people knew her secret: herself, and Gu Mang.”
The god spoke calmly. “That was also why, when she saw that Gu Mang’s memories were about to recover, she had Zhou He secretly use an evil technique during the interrogation, attempting to prevent Gu Mang from regaining his memories.”
Mo Xi was even more shocked. “Zhou He was acting on her orders too?!”
“Yes. Zhou He was one of Mengze’s followers, as well as her friend. What you said was correct. The person who had always been trying to obstruct Gu Mang from recovering his memories was Murong Mengze.”
“……”
“She knew that your gratitude toward her was an important piece on her chessboard. And she was uncertain whether, after Gu Mang remembered the past, he would reveal the entire truth to you because enough time had passed. Therefore, she was eager to provoke Gu Mang, make him lose control, and once again lose his reason. As long as he became an idiot, the secret that she had saved your life would once again have no second person in the world who knew it.”
Mo Xi murmured, “Impossible… She… she clearly had so many opportunities to make her move… Yet she had always patiently cared for Gu Mang. She even gave me directions, telling me to go to Lin’an to find the Grand Cultivator…”
“Gave you directions?” The god’s spirit let out a cold laugh. “Your innocent heart is truly naive. You do not know that the Yue Family Incident actually saved Gu Mang once. Because according to Murong Mengze’s original plan, Gu Mang’s mind would have been completely destroyed after you found the ‘Grand Cultivator.’”
“!”
Meeting Mo Xi’s astonished gaze, the god said calmly, “Mo Xi, do you think she would allow anything to happen to Gu Mang while he was under her care?”
“Murong Mengze made several attempts before and after. The first was the assassination of Murong Lian. The second was when Gu Mang was recuperating in the treatment chamber, when she told him the truth about the Oath of Heavenly Tribulation.
“In the second plan, she caused Gu Mang to collapse and lose control. She had almost succeeded, but your appearance happened to prevent Gu Mang from sinking further.
“If she had been too eager to succeed at that point and caused Gu Mang to fall ill in her hands, do you think there was a chance you would have suspected her?”
“……”
“So…” Mo Xi’s chest felt stifled.
At this moment, it was no longer anger. It was only endless coldness and exhaustion.
He murmured, “Then if we had gone to the outskirts of Lin’an, we wouldn’t have found the real Grand Cultivator either…”
“That is correct. There would only have been a cultivator disguised by her herself, waiting for you to walk straight into the trap.”
Upon hearing this, Mo Xi remained stunned for a moment before raising his head and letting out a desolate laugh.
Mengze… Mengze… She… she had actually been playing her own game of chess too?
So it turned out that imperial schemes, struggles among the nobility, and deception upon deception—looking back over half a lifetime, everyone had their own plans, and everything was false.
Was a throne, a hand holding power, truly that important?
Important enough to make someone calculate every ounce of their lifetime’s effort, and every sincere feeling of everyone around them, as pieces on a chessboard?
He suddenly felt that all of this was so ridiculous.
Among all the faces surrounding him, how many people had he truly seen clearly throughout all these years?
Was a life spent calculating every possible move really worth it…?