Niao Ni
Chapter 743 Someone in the Temple (Part Two)
Unnoticed beneath his snow-padded coat, his back was drenched. In the frigid climate, sweat seeped from his body, soaking his inner garments. His expression remained calm, but only he knew the courage and resolve he had summoned when he first passed through the celestial being's form.
Fan Xian was unsure of the unfathomable power of the temple, or whether it was as dilapidated as Emperor and Uncle Wu Zhu claimed. However, Wu Zhu's apparent entrapment within the snow temple instilled a natural apprehension towards it. Nevertheless, he had to gamble.
For now, it seemed he had won the bet. The celestial being's form, composed of light points, did not appear to possess any overwhelmingly powerful abilities, resembling more closely Fan Xian's earlier conjecture about a holographic projection.
However, the temple still held many secrets, many unexplained phenomena. For example, the rich Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi surrounding the area, and the martial arts manuals his mother had once stolen – that world might have had Chen style Tai Chi manuals, but certainly nothing as magical as the Overlord Technique (Ba Dao Gong Jue).
Fan Xian's thin lips trembled slightly as he stepped over the threshold of the intact building. With his hands behind his back, he gestured to Haitang and Wang Shisanlang, hoping that his two companions could remain strong in the face of the snow temple's divine might and assist him.
He entered the building. The points of light followed him like fireflies, leaving behind only a snow-covered ground and the snow platform without the footprints of the Azure Bird. The heavy doors closed silently, trapping Fan Xian inside and shutting Haitang and Wang Shisanlang outside.
Haitang and Wang Shisanlang were still reeling from shock. They didn't know where Fan Xian had gotten the immense courage to walk right through the celestial being's form. They also didn't understand why the celestial being had shattered into light points upon being struck by Fan Xian.
They were even more worried about Fan Xian's safety behind the closed doors. Haitang Duoduo narrowed her eyes, a bright light shining within. Just as she was about to gather all her cultivation to force her way in, Wang Shisanlang suddenly spoke, "His gesture was for us to stay outside... and take this opportunity to search for him."
Fan Xian risked so much, leaving Haitang and Wang Shisanlang outside, hoping they could seize the opportunity he had desperately created to search the temple for Wu Zhu. Fan Xian traveled thousands of miles to the temple, primarily for his dearest Uncle.
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...
It was a building resembling an ancient temple, but the materials used were not ordinary bluestone but a metal-like substance. Fan Xian's pupils narrowed slightly as he quickly scanned the hall. It was empty, with nothing extraordinary. However, the blank spaces vaguely suggested, based on the names of museums, that the place might have once housed exhibits.
The murals on the temple's exterior had long since crumbled, but those inside were well-preserved, clearly depicting various scenes.
With his hands behind his back, Fan Xian hunched over like an old man and carefully walked past the murals, his eyes scanning them meticulously. Since the light-point-formed celestial being wouldn't tell him the truth, he would have to find it himself.
As Fan Xian hunched over, studying the murals, the light-point-formed celestial being floated behind him like a ghost. Fan Xian was aware of this, but he didn't turn around or ask anything. The scene was strange. Being followed by a celestial being or a ghost made Fan Xian's skin crawl, but he remained remarkably calm.
The style of these murals was very similar to the oil paintings Fan Xian knew from his past life. The content depicted ancient myths occasionally mentioned on the continent. However, the faces of the gods were extremely blurry. Whether they were summoning thunder on mountain peaks, floating in the sea, or bathing in volcanic lava, a strange white mist obscured their true features.
Fan Xian's heart sank. He remembered the murals in the Qing Temple in Kyoto and the Qing Temple on Mount Dadong. The content of these murals depicted events from thousands or tens of thousands of years ago. There had been countless generations of transmission, so some ambiguity was inevitable. However, this temple was the origin of all legends. Why were the faces of the deities in these murals still blurry?
The temple celestial being, who had been following Fan Xian like a wisp of light, suddenly spoke, "These murals are by Bo'er."
"Bo'er? The great Western mage from three hundred years ago? I heard he and his wife, Fu Bo, were both Heavenly Vein holders... They disappeared without a trace. So they came back to the temple," Fan Xian frowned and said. "Heavenly Vein holders are originally the chosen people the temple sends to the world to spread wisdom. I thought these Heavenly Vein holders would eventually have rebellious thoughts and be killed by the temple's envoys. I didn't expect some to return to the temple alive."
"The temple forbids interference in worldly affairs and naturally wouldn't kill ordinary people recklessly. But you're right. Over the countless years, some Heavenly Vein holders who inherited the temple's knowledge developed delusions, causing suffering to the people. Whenever this happened, the temple would send envoys to make them disappear without a trace."
"That's probably why the legendary Heavenly Vein holders all disappeared." Fan Xian noticed that the wisp of light behind him still spoke in a calm and gentle tone, but addressed him with the honorific "nin" and began to communicate with him.
"But Bo'er and Fu Bo were different. They didn't have any worldly desires. After Fu Bo died, Bo'er endured endless hardships and returned to the temple. At that time, the temple's murals were about to crumble, so he spent seven years restoring them."
"But the history of the Qing Temple on Mount Dadong and the Qing Temple in Kyoto is more than three hundred years... how could those murals still be in Bo'er's style?"
"Because Bo'er only restored, not created. He followed the style of the murals from many years ago, so they naturally bear some resemblance to the murals of the world you grew up in."
Fan Xian suddenly pointed to the flames and light in the murals, squinting, and asked, "Why do those gods have no faces?"
"Because true gods never show their faces to people."
"So you're not a true god."
The points of light floating in the air behind Fan Xian gradually faded from the old man's face and transformed into a mirror-like existence. After a long silence, it said, "As you said earlier, I am not a god."
"Good, I was worried that you'd gone crazy after being cooped up in this snow mountain for tens of thousands of years and actually started to think of yourself as a god. That would have been difficult to deal with." Hearing the voice of the temple itself, Fan Xian felt slightly relieved. At least the most insane and terrifying possibility had been denied by the temple itself.
If a truly sentient and emotional being heard Fan Xian's words, it would understand the hidden meaning behind them. But it was clear that the entity in the temple was only thinking passively according to certain pre-determined procedures, and didn't say anything further.
"It's not that gods have no faces, but that there are no gods at all." For some reason, when Fan Xian said these words, he felt a sudden sense of loneliness. If there were no gods in the world, then his existence and his mother's existence were still so elusive, without any reason.
"Those are just some powerful machines or weapons." Fan Xian pointed to the gods in the murals who could split the earth and open the sky, and said softly, "I don't know what weapons they are. Atomic bombs or neutron bombs? Anyway, they're all terrifying things."
After hearing Fan Xian's words, the mirror surface of the wisp of light floating in the air rippled extremely strongly, as if it was undergoing intense thought processes. Perhaps it was because Fan Xian had uttered words it had never expected to hear, rendering it unable to analyze them clearly in a short time.
The light in the building wasn't particularly dazzling, but softly and gently bathed Fan Xian, as if casting a layer of holy light upon him. Whether it was for the sake of preserving the exhibits or because the temple's energy was running out, the light wasn't very bright. Fan Xian walked forward in silence, finishing viewing all the murals before returning to the center of the building. He turned around, looked at the wisp of light floating in the air, and after a long silence, he said, "Now, you should be very clear that I'm not an ordinary person... my two companions aren't here either. I don't think you need to be afraid of anything anymore. You can tell me the origins of the temple."
The mirror formed by the light soul fell into a deathly silence, as if analyzing whether Fan Xian's request could be approved.
"Throwing out a brick to attract jade, I'll throw a brick first." Fan Xian coughed twice, feeling a wave of weakness. He slowly sat down on the cold ground, absorbing the ubiquitous Yuan Qi of Heaven and Earth as he spoke in a hoarse voice, "The temple is a ruin, the remains of a civilization. In your words, it's a military museum, so it preserves some of the most advanced and terrifying things from that civilization. You won't tell me the history of the temple, so I'll have to guess based on these murals and my own knowledge."
"That civilization must be one I'm familiar with."
Fan Xian slowly closed his eyes, thinking of what Xiao En had said in the cave, and what Uncle Wu Zhu had once said. Soon after his mother first escaped from the temple, she must have returned to the temple again to find Uncle Wu Zhu. If so, the box must have been stolen from the temple by his mother during the second time.
A military museum containing a Barrett, clearly the era of the museum's existence should be later than the era when Fan Xian left, and it should be a line of civilization that came down in one continuous stream. Fan Xian would never believe that some ancient civilization could make an identical gun.
The thought that a familiar civilization, connected to the world he once truly lived in, had become a shadow of history, a broken temple in the snow mountains that the world couldn't accept, that the people Fan Xian... no, Fan Shen had once loved, hated, and cherished, had all become wisps of souls in the long river of time, and that the things he had once visited, seen, and admired, had all turned into yellow sand.
He felt a pang of pain in his heart. The pain wasn't very strong, but it was very clear, sour, and particularly wistful. He saw no ancients before him and no followers after him. Apart from Ye Qingmei, only he remained. The vastness of the universe was too much to bear. Such ten thousand years of solitude fell upon him alone. How heavy was that?
Fan Xian sat on the ground, coughing repeatedly, breathing rapidly. After a long time, a touch of indifference and bleakness appeared in his eyes. His expression was ambiguous, half-smiling, half-not, as he looked at the mirror formed by the light points in the air and asked, "As a former companion, can you tell me how that world was destroyed? Did some madman start throwing nuclear bombs around?"
The light mirror was as smooth as ice. After a long, long time, the gentle and steady voice echoed throughout the building, "It was a great war in the Realm of Gods. The immortals used their earth-shattering magic weapons, stirring up terrifying waves, deforming the earth, and causing volcanic eruptions..."
"Enough!" Fan Xian's angry voice echoed in the empty building. He stared at the mirror, coughing violently, eventually coughing up a trace of blood. He stubbornly wiped away the bloodstains at the corner of his mouth and cursed at the mirror, "I'm from that goddamn Realm of Gods! Stop talking this bullshit!"
"You're just a broken museum, not some goddamn temple!"
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...
Inside the Qing Kingdom's palace, filled with the vigor of spring, a clear and cold voice slowly echoed in the imperial study. The wooden door of the imperial study was slightly ajar for ventilation. Eunuch Yao, followed by the other eunuchs and palace maids, waited cautiously outside the room, not daring to enter.
"To be concerned for the people when residing high in the court, and to be concerned for the sovereign when dwelling far away in the jianghu. To be concerned whether advancing or retreating. When then will one find joy? Surely it must be said: to be the first to worry about the affairs of the world, and the last to enjoy its pleasures..."
Fan Ruoruo softly finished reading the passage, closed the book, and walked to a corner of the imperial study, staring blankly with her eyes open. She looked at the lush spring trees outside the window and couldn't help but think of her brother. She heard that they had gone north. What was in the north? Could the legendary temple be in the north? She heard that the far north was covered in ice and snow all year round, a place no ordinary person could approach. Was her brother doing well?
It was late spring, more than four months since the last palace coup. The imperial palace was enveloped in a harmonious and beautiful sunlight, but the imperial study remained icy cold. The Qing Kingdom's Emperor was lying on a soft couch, covered with a thin blanket, his face pale, his eyes somewhat vacant. Following Fan Ruoruo's gaze, he looked at the green trees outside the window. For some reason, His Majesty felt a particular aversion to these green trees, perhaps because he sensed the coming and going of spring and autumn, the changing of all things, this irresistible natural order.
"To be concerned for the sovereign, to be concerned for the people... An Zhi blurted out a line in the Northern Qi palace that year, and the little emperor forced him to write a passage, which ultimately remained headless and tailless." The Emperor spoke slowly, "I just don't understand how a boy who could write such words could do such unfilial and treasonous things."
After so much time, the Qing Kingdom's court naturally knew that the rebel Fan Xian had long escaped from Kyoto. Intelligence coming back from the north had accurately pointed out Fan Xian's whereabouts. However, to the surprise of many officials in Nan Qing, Fan Xian hadn't fled to the Northern Qi court. More surprisingly, His Majesty the Emperor seemed to direct his anger only at Fan Xian, and didn't launch a major purge within the Qing Kingdom.
The Emperor's eyes narrowed slightly, his sparse eyelashes drooping on his increasingly wrinkled face like inauspicious autumn leaves. His gaze swept past Fan Ruoruo's shoulder, and he suddenly asked, "Am I really not a good emperor?"
This was a pathetic question, an absurd question. How the Qing Emperor had performed on the dragon throne was a question only history could answer. But for some reason, this most powerful man in the world particularly needed to gain the approval of certain people.
Initially, he wanted to keep Fan Xian under house arrest in Kyoto, just to use Fan Xian's eyes to tell the deceased that now Fan Xian had rebelled. He had grown accustomed to asking Fan Ruoruo this question, and it was clear that he had asked it more than once, because Fan Ruoruo didn't even turn her head, simply replying calmly, "This is not a question for this subject's daughter to answer."
Suddenly, Eunuch Yao's voice came from outside the imperial study, "Consort Yi has arrived, County Princess Chen has arrived..."
Before his voice faded away, Consort Yi and Lin Wan'er entered. Clearly, these two women had come frequently in recent days. The Emperor merely glanced at them coldly, without scolding them or telling them to leave, letting them approach the soft couch and help him up.
Lin Wan'er replaced all the bedding on the soft couch, wiping the fine sweat from her forehead and smiling, "It's all new cotton from Zhongzhou, and the embroidery is done in the most fashionable style from Quanzhou. Try it and see if it's comfortable."
Consort Yi took out some food from the food box, carefully feeding His Majesty, and nagging as she fed, "The sun has been good these past few days. Your Majesty should go out and walk around."
The Emperor said coldly, "Coming every day, aren't you annoyed? It's not as if I can't move." The Emperor's injuries hadn't healed indeed, and even surprised Fan Ruoruo and the Imperial Hospital. They were remarkably lingering, perhaps because he was getting old. If it had been at the peak of his power, no matter how severe the injury, he would have recovered by now.
Lin Wan'er acted as if she didn't hear her Emperor-Uncle's words, and started massaging his shoulders with a smiling face. Fan Ruoruo glanced at it for a while, couldn't help but shake her head, and sat on the other side of the Emperor, starting to massage him.
The imperial study fell silent. Consort Yi sat quietly in front of the Emperor, smiling as she watched this scene. There was no major purge in the court. He Family officials had been slaughtered by Fan Xian, but instead, it made the court an iron bucket. The Third Prince, Li Chengping, had recently started trying to get involved in politics under the guidance of Grand Scholar Hu. Although Consort Mei's belly was already very large, from every angle, the Qing Kingdom was in a strangely stable state.
At least, in the eyes of the world, His Majesty the Emperor had no intention of changing the heir.
The Qing Kingdom seemed to have changed nothing. On the contrary, it seemed to have become even better. Except for that young man named Fan Xian, who had disappeared from the world for almost half a year. No one knew where he was, whether he was still alive.
Lin Wan'er didn't return to Danzhou with the whole family as Fan Xian had arranged, but stayed calmly in Kyoto, and the number of times she entered the palace was more frequent than before. This scene shocked many people.
"I will attend court tomorrow. Don't come." After a long silence, His Majesty the Emperor suddenly spoke. His tone was cold, but there was a trace of heaviness that was extremely difficult to detect. Perhaps this was the kind of man who had enjoyed the service of these relatives these past few days, but these relatives were, after all, the family of his son who dared to rebel against him.
"Yes, Your Majesty." Lin Wan'er smiled gently, without saying much. She knew clearly what she was doing, and she also knew clearly that she was only inheriting Fan Xian's ideas.
"Don't expect that boy to come back alive. Even if I could spare his life, the officials of this world would not allow him to live again if he really came back." The Emperor slowly closed his eyes, his lips drooping like his eyelashes, looking somewhat tired.
Could Fan Xian still come back alive? This was a heavy question pressing on everyone's heart, and His Majesty's words clearly cut off everyone's retreat. The Emperor still kept his eyes tightly closed and said coldly, "You don't know why he must find the temple, but I know. He wants to find Old Wu to come back and kill me. For such a conscienceless son, should I still have any pity for him?"
Yes, at this stage of development, it was already a rare act of magnanimity that the Qing Emperor hadn't completely destroyed these people related to Fan Xian. Of course, to a greater extent, it was because of the agreement between him and Fan Xian. After all, he didn't know whether Fan Xian was dead or not at this time.
Although since ancient times, it seemed that no one had been able to find the temple on their own, let alone rescue someone from the temple, the Emperor still couldn't rest assured, because he knew that a woman had once done it once. Would his son with that woman bring another great surprise to the world?
If Old Wu really comes back with Fan Xian, what will I do? What will happen to this world? The Emperor suddenly opened his eyes, a cold light bursting out, and said, "Summon Ye Zhong to the palace."
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(I realized I made a mistake. It was a mistake I made before the new year. The dual lead was started too late. There's a person in the temple, and I originally wanted to talk about both sides, but there's no way to write through the Qing court side. This is my mistake, I'm sorry, whether you like it or not, but I'm gradually finding my joy again, congratulations and congratulations...)