The boundless world.
The small heaven-and-earth inside the silver grimoire tested not only the transcendence of the self, but destruction and creation as well.
Everyone who entered the trial knew this much — but knowing it didn’t mean you could comprehend it on the spot, or there’d never have been tragedies like Molong, trapped inside for a full million years. Peerless as Yue Yang’s natural gifts were, without Duoduo’s guidance and everyone’s help, he likely couldn’t have reacted the very instant Shuang’er fell into danger.
As he closed his eyes and unfurled both hands to either side—
Beneath his feet, countless mists of water congealed into ice, forming a long ice bridge that stretched across both sides of the abyss.
And at Yue Yang’s feet, a small, exquisite seed sprouted at flying speed, threw out shoots, grew, and spread into a vine. It extended without limit, hanging down toward the abyss. Along the tough, resilient vine, green shoots burst forth on one side, flowers blooming everywhere, filling the whole valley with blossoms; on the other, it flung itself down after the falling, shrieking little girl Shuang’er, and — as if formed by nature itself — transformed into a beautiful flower swing, gently cradling Shuang’er’s little bottom.
It drifted softly outward, dissolving away all that plunging force that could have shattered flesh and bone. Then, at the very limit of its arc, it drifted back.
This beautiful flower swing, carrying with it a gentle gust of fragrant wind, delivered the darling Shuang’er — startled at first, then shrieking with delight — back into Yue Yang’s arms without a scratch on her.
Only when the little girl had thrown her arms around his neck and called out to him affectionately did he stir: “Third Big Brother, I want to ride the swing again! It flew so high, so high just now — I want another turn!”
Only then did Yue Yang open his eyes, and with both hands he held this mischievous, never-a-moment’s-peace little imp tight. Doting on her, he gathered her in and kissed her small forehead. “Where’s Mother?”
“Mother’s back there!” Shuang’er’s little hand pointed behind them. Yue Yang didn’t need to turn his head — the scene behind the ice bridge had utterly changed, becoming a winding, switchbacking mountain road. Halfway up the slope, amid drifting clouds and mist, stood the Yue family castle, unseen for so long. And two meters behind Yue Yang was a battered old carriage, without a horse, a length of rope scattered loose from the shafts where they rested on the ground, its cabin curtained off with a woven mat, standing there alone with only its own shadow for company.
“That’s right.” Yue Yang looked back, and his lips began to tremble faintly. He would never forget this scene as long as he lived. Back in those days, this was exactly how it had been — he had hauled the fourth mother home!
Rumble, rumble, rumble…
In the very instant Yue Yang looked back, an enormous iron ball came rolling down that winding mountain road.
A vast, perfectly round ball of iron, enough to flatten anything that stood in the way of its advance. Against it, the carriage — about to be ground to powder — was so very small.
Now: did he set down the Shuang’er in his arms and rush to save the fourth mother, the woman who had given him encouragement and given him her smile at every moment of his life? Or did he charge forward and use his own frail, powerless chest to block that terrible death away from them?
Yue Yang chose neither. With one arm he held the little girl, and with the other he reached slowly forward.
Countless walls of ice rose thundering up.
The iron ball smashed into them in a frenzy; the ice walls shattered, splinters spraying skyward. Several walls of ice could not halt the giant iron ball’s advance — and yet, under Yue Yang’s deliberate creation and guidance, they subtly altered the ball’s trajectory. The enormous iron ball came rumbling and crashing down, and by the narrowest of margins grazed past the very edge of the carriage. Seeing the battered old carriage safe and unharmed, the little girl — whose lovely face had gone pale with fright a moment ago — immediately let out a cheer, clapping her small hands, bouncing and hopping without pause in Yue Yang’s arms.
Before Yue Yang could let out so much as a breath of relief, a slope appeared ahead of the iron ball’s roll.
That vast momentum carried the ball up the high incline — and then, like a roller coaster, it reached the limit of its climb, plunged swiftly back, and came rolling in reverse.
What’s more, the iron ball erupted with flame across its whole body, scorching the ground until it hissed and sizzled, leaving a road of fire wherever it passed, rock and earth and sand alike branded red-hot.
“Your sister!” Yue Yang couldn’t help cursing.
With one arm cradling the little girl, with the other he caught up that length of rope, and — exactly as he had back in those days, hauling the fourth mother all the way up to the Yue family castle — he threw himself into pulling the cart.
Yue Yang ran like a man who’d forgotten his own life, dragging that battered old carriage upward, climbing — and close behind, in hot pursuit, came the searing, flame-wreathed iron ball.
Just as the carriage rushed into safe ground, just as the iron ball no longer had the strength to catch it—
That flaming iron ball suddenly sprouted spikes. They anchored it fast, driven into the middle of the slope.
Yue Yang had no time to be astonished before he abruptly discovered that the rope hauling the cart had snapped with a crack.
The carriage, having only just escaped danger, faltered a moment — and then, its pulling force gone, began sliding slowly backward, accelerating and accelerating, faster and faster, hurtling straight down toward that iron ball bristling with iron spikes and burning red-hot.
If it struck, no one inside that carriage could possibly survive.
In the depths of that despair, Yue Yang once again closed his eyes, one hand holding Shuang’er, the other stretching out before him… only this time, it was not creation. It was destruction.
The carriage slammed savagely into the searing iron ball, smashed into pieces.
And yet, in that very instant, all the flame and all the fragments were utterly annihilated, their energy transmuted into soft, delicate flower petals.
That immense force vanished without a trace, as though countless channels of life had drained away a flood — and the white-robed woman who had been sitting quietly inside the carriage all along descended slowly to the ground, borne up by petals that seemed to possess a spirit of their own. She even had the leisure to adjust the posture of her foot as she stepped down, and then set it upon the earth, steady, without having suffered the slightest harm.
She showed a gentle smile to Yue Yang, who came striding over with Shuang’er in his arms: “I knew it. There is no trial in this world that could ever be too hard for you.”
Reaching out to take the little girl — who was still unwilling to return to her mother’s embrace — she nodded lightly to Yue Yang. “You know we’ve always been waiting for you. So there’s no need to fear loneliness. We are always here.”
Yue Yang didn’t dare open his mouth to speak, terrified that if he did, the heat behind his eyes would betray the emotion in the depths of his heart.
Even before her — especially before her — he was unwilling to expose too much of what he felt inside.
Holding the little girl, she walked slowly away. She said nothing more.
And yet, everything she had just said, and the whole attitude she had held toward him all these years, declared her support: she would be at home, waiting always for him to return, would never let him set out alone on a solitary road, would never let him become a pitiful wanderer with no home to go back to. No matter the hour, she was always this gentle. No matter the hour, she always gave him her fullest support.
“Third Big Brother, go get ’em!” The mischievous little girl, for her part, twisted herself around to sprawl across her mother’s fragrant shoulder and waved back at her brother.
“…” Yue Yang discovered that a hazy film of moisture had veiled his own eyes.
This was not cowardice. It was longing — the longing of a wanderer long parted from his native land. Though he had not truly returned home, to be here, to see once more the ones he had missed so long in his heart — that was the finest reward he could have asked for.
Yue Yang slowly closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
Whatever trials came next, he would not hesitate, would not shrink back — because now he had the greatest, the most abundant, the finest support behind him.
And yet, even though he had steeled himself for the worst, when he opened his eyes and saw the scene before him, he still could not help being struck dumb.
This was a special place.
In this place lay the trial that Yue Yang had felt, in all his life, the least confident of passing.
Without that pure, immaculate woman — the one who ordinarily sat quietly reading her books, but who, once she fought, wielded boundless might, thunder in her left hand and bitter ice in her right — Yue Yang did not believe he could have cleared this place. Because this was… the one that in all of recorded history had never truly been cleared by anyone. Among the twelve houses of the zodiac: the House of the Virgin!
Harder than the Gate of Life and Death! Harder than any challenge at all!
The House of the Virgin tested the weaknesses of the human heart. No one had ever conquered the weaknesses of their own heart by their strength alone — not even the strongest of men could manage it.
The reason Yue Yang had succeeded in clearing it that day was that he’d had three fine companions: Xue Wuxia, who back then had mysteriously refused to reveal her identity; Inan, with her superb spiritual power; and his little sister Yue Bing, the most courageous and unshakably resolute of them all. With those three supporting him, Yue Yang had defeated his own inner demons in the House of the Virgin, defeated his own weaknesses, and cleared it as no one had ever done before.
But now — the time-crosser discovered he had returned to the House of the Virgin.
An ethereal, insubstantial voice sounded softly at his ear, like the wind murmuring low without a care, or like a lover’s tender whisper at close range: “Foolish creature. Do you truly imagine you passed through the House of the Virgin? In truth, everything you have experienced since then has been nothing but illusion.”
“Including the battles in the Heaven Realm, the trial of the Gate of Life and Death, and clearing the trial-ground beyond it — all of that is fake?” Yue Yang asked with a smile.
“You think it was real?” The ethereal voice mocked him without mercy. “Who do you think you are? That all the finest things in the world should be given to you? That every good fortune in the world should land upon your head?”
“That’s the reward for my effort, isn’t it?” Yue Yang shrugged.
“So you’d rather remain sunk in the illusion of your life than wake from it?” the voice asked, entirely without color or feeling.
“You could put it that way. Life is illusion to begin with, and it’s also real — it depends on how a person chooses to see it. If someone believes his life is real, then naturally it’s real; if he believes it’s false and goes chasing bitterly after the truth, then it’s certainly false. There’s no absolute true or false in this world. The true is built upon the false, and the false contains the true. Take a man: he looks like a man, and yet he’s a strange shape assembled out of countless tiny particles as loose as grains of sand. Or take a flower: it looks exceedingly beautiful, and yet it too is a form composed of countless minute particles. Magnify it and you’d find it swarming with all manner of hideous microorganisms — including its brilliant colors, which, viewed through lenses of different tints, might well turn hideous, even horrifying… The countless lives of this world are every one of them deluded, and not one of them knows what the most primal truth really is. That, I’m afraid, is the Way of Heaven, which men can scarcely hope to fathom — the true reality of life and of all things.” So Yue Yang answered.
“And that is your reason for being willing to live inside an illusion?” the ethereal voice asked.
“Even if I weren’t willing, I’d have neither the right nor the power to choose!” Yue Yang shook his head and sighed. “From the moment I was born I was a mortal, not some all-powerful god. As a mortal, what can I do? When my belly’s empty I need to eat; when I’m cold I need to put on clothes; when my body takes a blow I feel pain; when my spirit takes a setback I feel grief… Even if I want to be diligent, want to strive, want to change my own fate — what is there that I can actually do? I don’t know which choice is right, and I don’t know which choice is wrong. Sometimes I know full well a choice is wrong and I’m compelled to make it anyway. Can I choose freely? Impossible! Do I even have the ability to choose freely? I do not! So… mortals are simply good for nothing at all!” Yue Yang turned it back with a sneer: “You think I wanted it this way?”
“Even if you pass the House of the Virgin, pass the Gate of Life and Death, pass the trial-ground, and at last come to stand before a Divine Codex — with strength like yours, do you imagine the Divine Codex would choose you?” asked the ethereal, colorless voice.
“How would I know without trying?” Yue Yang had no answer for that in his own heart either.
“You, who feel you have transcended the self and comprehended creation and destruction — why is it, then, that you still cannot leave the boundless world?” The ethereal voice suddenly put a question to him: “On what grounds do you assume the three envoys are good guides? Could they not be servants of the evil god, laboring all this while for its resurrection — luring every harmful element that might obstruct that resurrection into the cage of the boundless world inside the silver grimoire?”
“Truth be told, I get taken in and cheated all the time. I don’t much care about one more.” Yue Yang burst out laughing.
“And if they never let you out? What will you do then? Dream forever in this world of illusion? Dream, as you did just now, of your beloved and your kin coming to your side?” the ethereal voice asked.
“A million years — if it’s no different from a single second,” Yue Yang nodded, and affirmed it, “then in that case it makes no difference to me at all.”
“Then sleep on and go on dreaming, mortal. In a million years, we’ll talk again.” The ethereal voice grew fainter and at last vanished, leaving no trace or mark, as though it had never appeared at all.
“A million years, is it?” Yue Yang closed his eyes and unfurled both hands. “That’s more than enough time for me to build this boundless world into the dreamland of my heart’s own imagining!”
Before he could even begin creating—
Suddenly, something stirred in his heart.
Yue Yang opened his eyes, looked — and found three little girls, even smaller than Shuang’er, gathered before him, watching him with curiosity. What in the world? What was this supposed to be?
The time-crosser shamelessly created a rainbow lollipop and waggled it about. “Tell Big Brother your names. Listen carefully — whoever answers fastest gets the lollipop as a reward!” This was a trick that worked on small children a hundred times out of a hundred — and on these three little girls it had no effect whatsoever. Together, they regarded Yue Yang with the look one gives an idiot, leaving the time-crosser thoroughly embarrassed.
The one on the left, a pink, chubby-cheeked, round-faced little girl, said in a milky little voice, “Some other blockhead already tried that one!”
Yue Yang was outraged to hear it, and denounced it with great righteousness: “What an absolute outrage — that there should exist a person so devoid of conscience as to deceive little children! Rest assured, Big Brother is absolutely not that sort of man!”
The one on the right, with hair cropped level with her ears, was so unbearably adorable that she covered her mouth and snickered.
In the middle stood a little girl with clear brows and lovely features, her expression calm and mild. Her small, scallion-pale hand pointed to the left: “Her name is ‘Creation.'”
She pointed to the right: “Her name is ‘Destruction.'”
Both small hands drew back. “My name is ‘Eternity.’ When you truly understand what creation, destruction, and eternity are — only then can you truly transcend this boundless world.”
(End of Chapter)