“The time has come? When has it come?”
Everyone looked at Yan Shouyi in confusion, waiting for him to perform the so-called ‘Star Shifting’.
Suddenly, someone rubbed their eyes, then with an expression of disbelief, pointed at the sky and shouted:
“Everyone, look quickly! The sky… is dark! The sky is dark!!”
Only then did everyone react and look up at the sky.
It was only around ten in the morning, the time of the brightest sunlight. Yet, the sun hanging in the sky had lost its color, appearing dim and lusterless.
A few seconds later, another person shouted, “It looks like a solar eclipse!”
Everyone saw the portion of the sun being devoured and then understood, “It really is a solar eclipse!”
Yan Shouyi’s so-called ‘Star Shifting’ actually referred to a solar eclipse?
But an eclipse was just a natural phenomenon and had nothing to do with Yan Shouyi’s geomancy!
They weren’t fools, and they wouldn’t be easily tricked by Yan Shouyi!
In less than a minute, the sun was completely obscured. Heaven and earth seemed to lose their color, and the animals on Longhu Mountain were trembling with fear.
From the Wanfa Sect Altar, Yan Shouyi softly recited:
“I have the Golden Crow of my will, soaring ninety thousand li on the wind.
Mountains and rivers lose their color, fish cease to leap and birds hide.”
The crowd couldn’t help but be drawn to Yan Shouyi’s verses. These two lines carried a certain domineering aura and fit the current scene, but compared to his earlier claim of ‘Star Shifting,’ they felt somewhat lacking in power.
Among the fifteen competing disciples who had already won, two disciples wearing Longhu Mountain masks looked up at the sky.
One male disciple asked the female disciple next to him, “What do you think? Do you believe he can truly achieve ‘Star Shifting’?”
The female disciple’s eyes reflected the vast expanse of stars. She replied, “Only by turning day into night can ‘Star Shifting’ be possible. So far, he hasn’t truly made his move.”
“You seem to know him very well.”
“We are old acquaintances, after all,” the female Taoist sighed softly.
As darkness enveloped the land and the world fell silent, Yan Shouyi finally made his move again.
He extended his hands, as if grasping the handles of the compass beneath his feet, and slowly turned it with effort.
In everyone’s ears, it sounded like gears turning.
Some people snapped back to reality and whispered to each other, asking if they had heard that sound.
Later, they all agreed on a common conclusion – it was the sound of Yan Shouyi turning the natural order of heaven and earth.
The world was like a colossal gear mechanism, with everything being a small cog within it. The movement of any one cog would drive the entire machine.
Yan Shouyi was nudging a specific cog, instigating the change in nature, a ripple effect that would ultimately alter what he had long foreseen – ‘Star Shifting’.
In the darkness, only the compass beneath Yan Shouyi’s feet emitted a faint blue light. Everyone felt their mouths go dry.
It wasn’t thirst, but sheer tension.
Suddenly, Yan Shouyi shouted, and the heavens and earth resonated with a sound:
“The four seas are shocked to reverse Yin and Yang!!”
“The five continents sigh to disorder the universe!!!!”
The stars in the sky began to move!!
The twinkling stars started to shift slowly. Sharp-eyed observers noticed that Yan Shouyi had actually orchestrated a celestial formation of Nine Stars Aligning!
“Nine Stars Aligning… He’s crazy, he’s truly crazy!”
“Am I dreaming? Is Yan Shouyi a mortal or an immortal? How could he possibly achieve ‘Star Shifting’?”
“If this kid really has this ability, can he truly reverse Yin and Yang and disorder the universe?!”
“For a moment, I can’t tell if Yan Shouyi is human or immortal, ghost or god…”
Under the starry sky, no one was not astonished.
“He did it, he actually did it!” Abbot Guanyun’s face was filled with disbelief, as if she were dreaming.
Although Zhang Shantong had always believed in Yan Shouyi, he was still astonished by such a shocking spectacle.
Not to mention Long Feicheng and the others, who couldn’t help but cheer.
The male Taoist who had spoken earlier said in a low voice, “I initially saw you only as a strong rival, but now, Yan Shouyi is the greatest threat…”
The female Taoist chuckled, “Are you afraid of him?”
“Afraid… I am truly afraid. But the art of ‘Star Shifting’ cannot be used to kill. Whether I am superior to him will only be known when we fight.”
The female Taoist stared at the Nine Stars Aligning and whispered, “In past lives and this one, he has always been like this, like the stars in the sky, seemingly within reach, yet distant. I can only watch, but never catch up or grasp him.”
“You really know him well, so well that it goes back to past lives,” the male Taoist teased.
The female Taoist shifted her gaze, looking at Yan Shouyi with a complex expression.
Among the crowd, there was another person, carrying a spear on her back, a smile on her face and pride in her eyes.
On the Wanfa Sect Altar, Yan Guchao looked up at the Nine Stars Aligning, his strength gradually fading. He finally lay on the ground facing heaven and earth, staring blankly at the sky.
This time, he had lost.
He lost fairly, he lost wholeheartedly, he lost… without any suspense.
The millennia of research and inheritance of the Kunlun Yan family were ultimately not worth mentioning…
In front of that “thief” named Yan Shouyi, it was nothing.
Thinking about it carefully, Yan Shouyi wasn’t a thief. What thief could possess such ability and achieve such glorious deeds beyond the original master?
“I lost…” Yan Guchao murmured to himself.
Beneath the brilliant starry sky, under the awe-inspiring Nine Stars Aligning, in everyone’s gaze, Yan Shouyi slowly lowered his head and opened his palm.
“For a moment, it seemed like an eternity… The ultimate principles of heaven and earth are in this palm!”
This final line of verse was like a sharp sword piercing directly into people’s hearts!
Only then did everyone connect Yan Shouyi’s four lines of poetry in their minds.
“I have the Golden Crow of my will, soaring ninety thousand li on the wind.
Mountains and rivers lose their color, fish cease to leap and birds hide.
The four seas are shocked to reverse Yin and Yang,
The five continents sigh to disorder the universe.
For a moment, it seemed like an eternity, the ultimate principles of heaven and earth are in this palm!”
This scene, this person, this poetry, were all otherworldly, fitting only for the heavens…
What immense spirit, what formidable strength, what high state of mind were required to accomplish this feat?!
Zhang Sishui, who was in front of the Celestial Master Hall, could no longer sit still. He nervously said to the Old Celestial Master:
“The last time the Nine Stars Aligned was over four thousand years ago, when the Five Emperors declined and the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties were established. This was not just a dynastic change, but a great upheaval of the world… If Yan Shouyi triggers the Nine Stars Aligning, he might overturn our current world!”
“Are you flustered?” the Old Celestial Master asked with a smile.
“Aren’t you flustered??” Zhang Sishui was more than flustered; he was practically going insane!
Did the Old Celestial Master truly understand the immense implications of this?
The Old Celestial Master smiled, “It seems Yan Shouyi has deceived all of you!”
Zhang Sishui was stunned, “Deceived? What deception?”
“He is merely a mortal. I do not deny his profound geomancy skills, but the geomancy we know is limited to our known world. Look around the universe; our world is but a drop in the ocean. Yan Shouyi is even less, a drop within a drop. How could he possibly command the Nine Stars to align? This is simply like an ant trying to shake a tree, a fantasy!”
“But the Nine Stars Aligning in the sky…”
“It’s merely the boy manipulating feng shui, changing the atmospheric phenomena, causing light refraction to deceive everyone’s eyes, making them believe he truly achieved ‘Star Shifting’ and even created the Nine Stars Aligning! Reversing Yin and Yang wasn’t done by him, it was the solar eclipse, and the nine stars didn’t even form a straight line! It was all an illusion!”
The Old Celestial Master’s words were like a wake-up call. Once Zhang Sishui understood the subtleties, he immediately returned to his senses.
Seeing the Old Celestial Master so calm, and recalling his own recent panic, he felt a surge of annoyance.
There was still a vast gulf between him and the Old Celestial Master, a gap he might never bridge in this lifetime.
It was all Yan Shouyi’s fault!
All this talk of ‘Star Shifting’ was a lie!
But Zhang Sishui then thought that if not for the Old Celestial Master’s enlightenment, he might never have grasped the essence of it.
It was only after being enlightened that he felt it was simple.
But the true difficulty lay in deceiving everyone. Others couldn’t do it, but Yan Shouyi did, and thus, he had to admit Yan Shouyi’s brilliance!
The solar eclipse slowly disappeared.
The so-called ‘Star Shifting’ and ‘Nine Stars Aligning’ vanished along with it.
Sunlight returned to the earth, and everyone, as if waking from a dream, felt a lingering fear.
When they looked towards Yan Shouyi on the Wanfa Sect Altar again, there was no longer any disrespect in their eyes. Instead, they feared offending him.
Yan Shouyi clenched his open palm and muttered to himself:
“What a pity, this epic moment! The stinky girl didn’t get to see it. I wonder if Xiao Long and the others managed to film it.”
He looked at Yan Guchao lying on the ground and was surprised, “Did I… did I hit you just now? Why are you lying on the ground?”
Yan Guchao, lying on the ground, had a look of utter despair. He replied, “Don’t mind me, I just want to lie here.”
This was the legendary ‘lying flat’?
Yan Shouyi was speechless. It seemed his impact on Yan Guchao was too great, frightening the child profoundly, perhaps causing a mental block.
However, Yan Shouyi was neither worried nor guilty, because he anticipated that the Yan family would eventually figure out the marvels of this competition. When they resolved their doubts, Yan Guchao would merely laugh at his own short-sightedness at the time, rather than suffering a mental setback and stagnating.
Thus, the Yan family members came forward and carried Yan Guchao away.
Yan Shouyi called out to the Yan family members and took out the Yan Xing Compass. He said, “My father shouldn’t have taken your family’s treasure back then. It’s returned to its rightful owner now. I hope your Yan family will no longer resent us.”
To his surprise, the Yan family members refused to take the Yan Xing Compass:
“Today’s battle, we lost again. The Yan family has its own integrity. Keep this Yan Xing Compass well, and when we win against you next time, we will reclaim it personally!”
This attitude was indeed just as Yan Nanfei had described.
However, Yan Shouyi wondered if the Yan family, after developing the sixty-three-layer compass, no longer considered this fifty-two-layer Yan Xing Compass a treasure?
Was keeping the Yan Xing Compass merely to hold a grudge against the Yan family?
Still, Yan Shouyi genuinely saw respect in the eyes of the Yan family members.
It was likely that the two families would no longer be sworn enemies from now on.