Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

Chapter 497 – A String of Stone Pearls

Chen Changsheng walked through the wetlands on the outskirts of the plain. He glimpsed that island of reeds and then went to that cave. In the depths of that cave, he saw the bones of that elder from the Setting Sun Sect, already picked clean by the monsters.

Then he went to Sunset Valley, slowly making his way along the mountain path of white stone, arriving by a wutong tree.

He didn’t know he wanted to come to this wutong tree, he had just been following a feeling.

But this place also had no people.

There was no other person in the Garden of Zhou.

Not a single one.

Ultimately, he returned to the front of the Mausoleum of Zhou. The colossal mausoleum stood between heaven and earth, still insufferably arrogant as ever. The Heavenly Tome Monoliths arranged around the mausoleum were no longer as berserk and terrifying as they had been on that day and now seemed extremely calm. The lines on their surface, perhaps because the sand blown by the wind over these past days had filled them up or because they had been grinded away, had already disappeared, as if they had returned to their initial forms as stone pillars.

The black monolith was just like the rest, its surface smooth.

Chen Changsheng placed his hand on its surface. From the plain behind him, a burst of low howls came from the distance.

This was a sending off and also an expression of unease and imploration.

They were sending off the Garden of Zhou’s new owner, uneasy that he might not come back, imploring him that in his grace, he might descend once more as quickly as possible.

……

……

There was darkness, and then light.

Chen Changsheng opened his eyes. He realized that he was still in his room, still by his window. Nothing had changed from before.

It was just that the time had already reached high noon. The sun hung up high in the azure sky. No matter how hard the trees of the Orthodox Academy worked to provide shade, it was impossible for them to prevent the descent of those scorching rays of light.

The light that he saw was sunlight.

Then he noticed that a string of stone pearls had appeared on his wrist.

In every aspect, these pearls seemed to have been made from the most ordinary stone. Their surfaces were unadorned, and they emitted no Qi. Moreover, their surfaces could not even be described as particularly smooth.

He didn’t know that when he was confronting Zhu Luo’s attack in Xunyang City, this string of stone pearls had appeared on his wrist.

These stone pearls were the Heavenly Tome Monoliths transformed.

Because there were eleven pearls in all, ten of them gray and one of them black.

In the past, Zhou Dufu might have taken away twelve Heavenly Tome Monoliths from the Mausoleum of Books. Later on, when he and she saw them in the Mausoleum of Zhou, there were only ten monoliths and one broken monolith base.

It was precisely because one Heavenly Tome Monolith was missing, and he had taken away the Sword Pool that had served as substitute for this Heavenly Tome Monolith, that a problem had occurred with the formation around the Mausoleum of Zhou. It was only at that point that he realized he had a black stone with him.

That black stone he had obtained from Lingyan Pavilion was actually also a Heavenly Tome Monolith.

That black stone that had come from Wang Zhice had transformed into a Heavenly Tome Monolith, allowing the formation of Heavenly Tome Monoliths around the Mausoleum of Zhou to restabilize. He had originally thought that this black stone was a Heavenly Tome Monolith that Wang Zhice had carried out of the Garden of Zhou, but later on after leaving the Garden of Zhou and recalling the contents of the notebook he had found in Lingyan Pavilion, he felt that his conjectures might not have been accurate.

Regardless of where those two Heavenly Tome Monoliths had gone, the string of stone pearls on his wrist were Heavenly Tome Monoliths.

Of course, it wasn’t merely because of these eleven stone pearls, ten were gray and one was black, just so happening to conform to the number of Heavenly Tome Monoliths around the Mausoleum of Zhou. He felt this way mainly because he could sense something from that black stone.

He could clearly sense that the Garden of Zhou was within the black stone.

This sentence was not completely correct. It would be better to say that the black stone was the new gate to the Garden of Zhou and the key to open the Garden of Zhou was his spiritual sense.

He subconsciously raised his hand, taking advantage of the sunlight outside the window to carefully examine the string of stone pearls.

Bright rays of light peeked through the chinks of the stone pearls, fluctuating between all sorts of angles. In certain tiny places, there seemed to be rainbows within.

It was only at this point that he finally realized what had occurred.

Those objects of incomparable divinity, the source of all Daos, the Heavenly Tome Monoliths, were currently being worn on his hand.

And there were eleven of them.

The sunlight illuminated the stone pearls and shot into his eyes, dazzling him and giving a dreamlike impression.

At this moment, the door to his room was pushed open.

He turned his head and saw Tang Thirty-Six and Xuanyuan Po.

“Just where did that idiot go?”

“How would I know…Princess Teacher Luoluo even wanted to me to keep an eye on him, but then he went and ran off without even saying anything. How can I keep an eye on him?”

Xuanyuan Po said with great chagrin, then he and Tang Thirty-Six saw Chen Changsheng’s figure.

After a moment of silence, Tang Thirty-Six patted his stomach. With a little fear still lingering in his voice, he said, “It’s fine, it’s fine. I won’t ask you where you’ve been. As long as you didn’t run away, it’s fine.”

Puzzled, Chen Changsheng asked, “Why would I run away?”

“You just up and disappeared for half a day…”

Tang Thirty-Six looked at him and said, “We all suspected that upon hearing that Xu Yourong was coming back, you got scared that your fiancée would beat your face into a swollen mess and so ran away.”

Xuanyuan Po waved his hands around, saying, “I didn’t say it like that.”

Tang Thirty-Six sneered at him, “Do you dare say that you weren’t thinking about it?”

Xuanyuan Po was a very honest bear child. Hearing this question, he hesitated for quite some time before finally saying nothing.

Chen Changsheng was a little taken aback. “Your mentioning her just reminded me of something. Can one of you help me write a letter to the Divine General of the East’s estate?”

Tang Thirty-Six asked in shock, “A son-in-law with muddy feet moving into the house of his wife? The woman hasn’t even come back, there’s no need to be in such a rush.”

Chen Changsheng shook his head, saying, “I plan to pay a visit tonight. There are some matters I wish to discuss.”

“You can’t really be afraid of Xu Yourong and planning to do some dirty tricks, are you?”

Tang Thirty-Six was interested now, saying, “You should first ask me about these things. You know that I’m most skilled at them.”

Chen Changsheng laughed, but paid no attention to his words. He made his way out of the room, saying, “I’ll go eat first.”

A few days ago, Luoluo had said to him that it was certain that the girl had not left the Garden of Zhou alive. He said to her that he would go to the Divine General of the East’s estate to end the engagement. He had promised her this back in the Garden of Zhou. Even if she was no longer here, he would assuredly still carry out this promise. He had not gone to the Divine General of the East’s estate in the last few days because he had been rather busy, because he had lost an important and necessary item in the Garden of Zhou. At the same time, it was also because his heart still held one final thread of hope.

If she did not leave the Garden of Zhou, then perhaps she was still there. Since the Garden of Zhou had not been destroyed, she might still be alive.

Only last night and this morning, when he finally entered the Garden of Zhou once more, did he discover that there was no one within. No person was there, that person was not there. As a result, his final hope was also not there.

As he had searched, he had retrieved that item in passing.

As he watched Chen Changsheng’s back go through the door, Tang Thirty-Six fell silent. Finally, he asked, “Do you think that he’s a bit stranger today?”

Xuanyuan Po asked in confusion, “How is he strange?”

Tang Thirty-Six replied, “His laugh was rather strange…very ugly.”

Xuanyuan Po recalled the scene, then nodded, “Yeah, he laughed like he was crying.”