After pondering for a moment, Li Fan chose not to keep playing mysteries. Instead, he nodded and said, "Indeed. How did you deduce that, Fellow Daoist?"
In his slightly low voice, Xu Ke gave a light chuckle and said, "For someone who is an enemy of the world, where else in the Xuanhuang Realm would information about me still exist, if not in the Fallen Immortal Realm?"
Li Fan was slightly taken aback. "An enemy of the world? What do you mean by that?"
Now it was Xu Ke's turn to look puzzled. "You don't know what I'm sitting on?"
Li Fan shook his head candidly.
"Then why have you come looking for me?" Xu Ke stared intently at Li Fan, his expression inscrutable.
"I sought you out, Fellow Daoist, first to help the juniors of the Empire fulfill their lifelong wish."
"Second, it is to understand the various contingency plans Mr. Bai left behind back then. After learning of his deeds, I was deeply moved by his righteous devotion. Yet, unfortunately, the information I obtained in the Fallen Immortal Realm was incomplete—nothing more than memory fragments from different eras. Thus, it took quite a bit of effort before I located your hiding place. I hope you can resolve my confusion, Fellow Daoist," Li Fan said earnestly with cupped hands.
Upon hearing Li Fan's attitude toward Mr. Bai, Xu Ke's expression softened considerably.
"The Empire?" His eyes narrowed, seemingly lost in memory.
"It is the lineage you left behind in the world where Chi Jiutou fell, Fellow Daoist," Li Fan reminded him.
"Ah..." Xu Ke finally remembered.
"Xiao Qing, Xiao Hong..." A nostalgic look appeared on his face.
"The two of them are still alive and well. However, in searching for your traces, the Heavenly Destiny Profound Bird has already fallen." As Li Fan spoke, he handed an object over.
It was none other than the final Feather of the Profound Bird that Xiao Hei had left behind in the Beast Seed Realm.
Xu Ke took the pitch-black feather, his hands trembling slightly. A flicker of sorrow passed through his eyes, and only after a long silence did he speak slowly: "I failed him."
"Could... you give this to me?" Xu Ke asked.
"It is merely returning the item to its rightful owner. If Xiao Hei knew that the Feather of the Profound Bird he left behind could ultimately return to your side, he would be able to rest in peace," Li Fan sighed.
"Thank you." Xu Ke solemnly tucked the Feather of the Profound Bird into his breast.
Atop the towering stone mountain, absolute silence fell once more.
At the summit of this desolate world, not even the wind seemed to exist.
There was only the eternal deathly stillness handed down from time immemorial.
Li Fan was in no rush either, merely keeping Xu Ke company through the sky's desolation and waiting patiently.
After a long while, Xu Ke finally spoke again.
Thanks to the effect of that earlier sequence of moves, his attitude toward Li Fan had become completely different.
"How much do you currently know?" Xu Ke asked.
"Back then, your and Xiao Hei's journey far to Nanming Sacred Beast Mountain was in truth a mission entrusted to the Beast Taming Sect by Mr. Bai. Including the series of actions that followed, the ultimate goal was to breed fission whales capable of infinite proliferation and opening up the void, so that the mortals of various pocket worlds who were forced to migrate due to the emergence of the immortal-mortal miasma could get as far away from Xuanhuang as possible."
"And the so-called immortal-mortal miasma was also the product of Mr. Bai defying the natural principles. As Great Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang, he ultimately ended his own life because of it."
...
Word by word, Li Fan slowly recounted the conclusions he had pieced together and deduced from the Fallen Immortal Realm and the real world.
"You truly know quite a bit."
"You put real care into this."
"In this world, how many people still remember Mr. Bai?" Xu Ke actually gave Li Fan a bow to show the respect in his heart.
"Yet I harbor many doubts and things I cannot let go of. I ask Fellow Daoist to resolve my confusion. Otherwise, I fear I will find neither rest nor sleep in the days ahead," Li Fan said solemnly.
"As Great Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang, Mr. Bai was already the strongest being in the Xuanhuang Realm at the time. Why did he choose to sacrifice himself and resort to a method like the immortal-mortal miasma to protect mortals?"
"Do you believe the immortal-mortal miasma was useful? If the immortal-mortal miasma had never emerged in the Xuanhuang Realm from beginning to end, how would history have unfolded?" Xu Ke countered.
Li Fan pondered for a moment, then said slowly, "Without the immortal-mortal miasma, the catastrophe where dharmas cannot be cultivated concurrently would still exist. In the end, cultivators would still have fallen into a desperate plight of mutual suspicion and slaughter. In that process..."
"When the city gate catches fire, the fish in the moat suffer. In a cultivation wasteland, how could there be any place for mortals? Even if one in ten thousand survived, it would be a blessing. Becoming infected by the immortal-mortal miasma and then forced to migrate to pocket worlds—though many died along the way, compared to the fate they would have faced remaining in the Xuanhuang Realm, it was practically negligible," Xu Ke finished for Li Fan.
Hearing this, Li Fan slowly nodded in agreement.
"So Mr. Bai foresaw the Xuanhuang Realm's destiny for the next several thousand years right at the onset of the catastrophe?" Li Fan asked again.
"That was no difficult feat for Mr. Bai," Xu Ke said as if it were only natural.
"In that case..." Li Fan's tone and expression suddenly shifted.
"The catastrophe where dharmas cannot be cultivated concurrently was brought about single-handedly by the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable spreading the new method. As long as that chief culprit was slain, it might not have been impossible to set things right! Why did Mr. Bai choose to shrink back without even fighting?"
"He didn't even care about his own life, yet he lacked the courage to fight a battle against Chuanfa?" There seemed to be deep resentment in Li Fan's voice.
"'Ahead lies the immortal path one cannot tread; the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable sits overhead.'" After a silence, Xu Ke sighed faintly and spoke the words Mr. Bai had once lamented.
Then he explained further, "Leaving aside whether Mr. Bai was a match for the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable, who had already successfully defied natural principles..."
"In truth, in Mr. Bai's deductions, even slaying Chuanfa could not stop the catastrophe from befalling the Xuanhuang Realm."
"In Ningyuan City, in the underground chamber, did you ever see those beast seed monstrosities fused from human and hound?"
"I have."
"Those beast seeds had the bodies of humans and the limbs of dogs. Mr. Bai once tried to salvage their lives. He gathered suitable human limbs, intending to remove their canine limbs and graft human limbs back on."
"However, because the canine limbs had long since merged completely with their bodies through daily living, Mr. Bai's numerous attempts failed without exception."
"Most died right during the transplant operation. And even those that appeared successful rarely survived more than a month post-surgery, all perishing miserably from the frantic drain of their vitality."
"No matter how hard Mr. Bai tried, the result never changed."
Xu Ke explained with complete calm.
Li Fan slowly began to grasp the meaning.
"You mean that the Xuanhuang Realm is facing the exact same situation?"
Xu Ke sighed. "As the saying goes, spilt water cannot be gathered back."
"The changes Chuanfa inflicted upon the Xuanhuang Realm have already taken effect."
"To reverse them, the effort required would likely be tenfold, a hundredfold greater."
Chapter 1091