Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

Countless footprints suddenly appeared like stars on the scorched earth of the Myriad Willows Garden.

Guan Xingke's figure had already vanished, perhaps already departed from Tianliang County.

Zhu Luo stared into the distance, his face overcome with complex emotions.

He had actually gone to Mount Han?

In the past, he would certainly have hurried together with Guan Xingke to Mount Han.

Just like the other experts of the continent that had just received the summons from the Elder of Heavenly Secrets.

But now, he was old, wounded, simply incapable of hurrying over.

Suddenly, he felt a hint of regret towards that matter from last year in Xunyang City.

If he had not gone to kill Su Li, he would have had the chance today to kill that person.

Ah, this was truly the thing he should have done!

Even if he would die, he would still have done it!

……

……

The figures swiftly flying towards Mount Han were not many, but they were all supreme experts of the human world.

On the distant shores of the Red River, the majestic and awe-inspiring White Emperor City was still at peace, everything carrying on just as normal. The only strange feature was that white cloud hanging over the city walls.

In the Imperial Palace, the summer light shone over the Dew Platform. In the daylight, those Night Pearls were still as dazzlingly radiant as ever.

The Tianhai Divine Empress stood in this light, gazing into the distance, her expression indifferent, her thoughts inscrutable.

In the serene palace in the deepest depths of the Li Palace, the Pope quietly gazed at the Green Leaf before him, his thoughts also inscrutable.

In the snowy plains to the north of Mount Han, even though it was the height of summer, the frigid wind still chilled to the bone and the blizzards blew without end.

A man stood in the blizzard. If one did not walk up close, it would simply be impossible to realize his existence.

Because he was dressed in white all over, from his hair to his clothes, all white to the extreme.

……

……

In Mount Han, the middle-aged scholar gazed at those Heavenstones floating in the sky. He fell silent, no longer conversing with the Elder of Heavenly Secrets at the summit.

Could this also be a plot laid down by the humans and demi-humans?

The stones gently hovered in the sky.

Several dozen stones, carrying moss, water, and gravel, floated around his body, creating a rather odd scene.

……

The middle-aged scholar knew what the Elder of Heavenly Secrets wanted to do.

He believed that this was not a plot of the humans, because even as late as last night, neither the Military Advisor nor even he himself could have known that he would appear in Mount Han today.

After he suffered defeat on the Central Plains all those many years ago, he returned to Xuelao City and did not emerge again for what was now one thousand years.

A powerful figure on his level had grasp of his own fate. His words, actions and thoughts all coincided with the Heavenly Dao, making it very difficult for him to be figured into a plot.

White Emperor City was too far and he was also extremely certain that Tianhai and the Pope were both in the capital.

But if he really was delayed for too long in Mount Han by this Heavenstone array, the situation really might change.

He had never liked change, because change was often troublesome.

Now, it was his turn to make a choice.

Should he take advantage of the fact that no change had occurred yet to use his full strength to shatter the array and leave Mount Han, returning to his territory? Or should he pause for a little while longer and first accomplish that task?

The Elder of Heavenly Secrets had chosen to sacrifice those human cultivators and demi-human experts on the mountain path and by the stream in order to imprison him within Mount Han. He had made this decision very quickly, but presumably, there had been some hesitation.

To him, however, there was no need to hesitate at this moment, or even a need to choose.

Because in his view, to accomplish this task would not take too long.

In his eyes, that youth was truly not much different from an ant, even if this youth was a cultivating genius who had shocked the entire continent.

He no longer paid any attention to those Heavenstones that broke through the wind and snow, withdrawing his gaze back to the mountain path.

Chen Changsheng and the other human cultivators were on the mountain path.

He was very calm, a nigh intangible smile still hanging about his lips.

As the gaze of the middle-aged scholar once more descended, the people on the mountain path were plunged into despair.

In the grass by the stream, Liu Qing also despaired.

Even Zhexiu and Tang Thirty-Six had given up hope.

Chen Changsheng had not. As he looked back at the smiling and silent middle-aged scholar, he inexplicably thought of a person he really shouldn't have been thinking about at this moment.

The middle-aged woman that had once sat across from him in the Hundred Herb Garden, drinking tea.

He didn't know whether or not it was because both of them did not speak, but he felt that the middle-aged scholar and the middle-aged woman were somewhat similar.

Of course, he knew that he was definitely mistaken.

Because he knew who this middle-aged scholar was.

He knew what he had come to do.

On that night when he was ten years old, his senior brother had fanned himself for the entire night. Later on, his senior said to him that only a Saint would be able to resist the greed and longing for his flesh.

In the following years, he paid a great deal of attention to hiding his body's peculiarity until the Garden of Zhou, when that aroma was smelled by the Great Peng and Nanke.

The middle-aged scholar was Nanke's father, so perhaps he had found out from her.

And he was naturally no Saint.

He was a fiend.

Chen Changsheng felt that in this middle-aged scholar's gaze, he was naked, lying on a moist chopping board, his belly already sliced open and his entire body stained with blood.

He was not afraid, but he was truly afraid of this sort of feeling.

He did not wish to be a piece of fish to be eaten.

……