Visitors from Beyond the High Wall

Once, twice. Li Fan swept his divine sense over the storyteller repeatedly, yet failed to find any reason why the immortal array had misjudged him. "Perhaps it isn't because of the man himself..." Frowning, Li Fan began carefully searching the surrounding objects. His gaze finally settled on the gavel used by the storyteller. "This thing..." It appeared utterly unremarkable, just a pitch-black block of wood. Yet the moment Li Fan drew it into his hand, his divine soul felt a trace of cool clarity at the touch. "Hmm?" Ever since comprehending the Limitless Waxing and Waning Method, Li Fan's divine soul had remained constantly in a state of "perfection," hovering at the very limit of what he could achieve. Even if it suffered any damage, it would heal itself in an instant through the power of the Five Elements and primordial circulation. His soul had grown powerful to such a realm that it could only increase in steps alongside breakthroughs in major cultivation stages. In fact, since advancing to the Soul Formation realm until now, the strength of Li Fan's divine soul had not increased for a very long time. Yet now, as this cool sensation merged within, Li Fan actually felt his divine soul slowly solidifying, its bottleneck beginning to loosen! "Hiss... What kind of treasure is this gavel?" Beyond his pleasant surprise, Li Fan felt even greater vigilance. One had to realize that his current soul strength was already comparable to a Xuanhuang Longevity realm cultivator. Once the limit was reached, advancing even a fraction further was something mere effort could no longer accomplish. "Countless treasures rest within the Celestial Vessel's secret reservoir, yet not a single one proved useful to me. To think the Xuanhuang Realm still concealed such a thing..." With utmost caution, Li Fan set down an immortal array to isolate the black gavel. Then, he searched the storyteller's mind for its origins. It was not some mysterious ancestral heirloom; the man had simply chopped a branch from a tree in his courtyard, polishing and carving it into shape. Li Fan brought the storyteller, named Ge Daoquan, back to his home. In the courtyard, that lush, emerald-green tree still stood tall. The moment he stepped into the yard, Li Fan felt something different. It was like walking under scorching sunlight on a sweltering summer day, only to suddenly step into a patch of cool shade. Just one word for it: Comfortable! If it were an ordinary cultivator, the stark contrast would have likely drawn an audible groan of relief on the spot. Taking a deep breath without letting down his vigilance, Li Fan slowly approached the tree. The leaves suddenly rustled without wind, whispering softly. Li Fan had encountered quite a few extraordinary trees across his many cycles of reincarnation. In the Xuanhuang Realm, there were the three ancient trees—Myriad Spirits, Tianhua, and Earth Vein—as well as Ruomu, the fountainhead of living beings. Aboard the Xuan Celestial Vessel, there was a divine tree from the ancient Divine Wood Sect. Yet all of those were different from the one before him. Whether the three ancient trees or Ruomu, they all possessed consciousness, giving Li Fan the eerie, uncanny feeling of flora attaining sapience. But this tree in the courtyard... It was purely a tree. Pure, yet far from ordinary. The crisp rustle of leaves brushing against one another caused the tension Li Fan had carried throughout this lifetime to slowly unwind. Li Fan did not know the name of this tree. At this moment, he lacked the urge to probe into its secrets; instead, he sat cross-legged beneath it, meditating quietly as if comprehending the Dao. Another gentle breeze drifted by, shaking loose dozens of dripping-green leaves from the boughs. Like streaks of light, they flew into Li Fan's body. Li Fan's eyes slowly shut. When he opened them again, ten days had already passed. The struggles and desperate gambles across a hundred lifetimes of samsara, the perpetual dread of peerless monsters suddenly emerging from nowhere, the lingering terrors of countless close brushes with death before reverting to the true... All these burdens and exhaustion accumulated in his soul were completely washed away. It was like waking from a deep, thoroughly satisfying sleep. From top to bottom, mind and body were revitalized anew. Standing up once more, Li Fan felt his mental state was better than ever before. He gazed at the tree in the courtyard. Its splendor had entirely subsided, looking no different from anything ordinary in his eyes. It seemed just like an unremarkable, everyday tree. Li Fan recalled the scenes that had flashed through his mind during his ten-day slumber— memories originating from the tree itself. A streak of flowing light tore across the sky, crashing near the tree. Motionless as an inanimate object, it seemed devoid of all vital aura. On the outside, it resembled a bloodstained orb, more than half scorched. As time drifted by, the rotting crust on the orb's surface slowly sloughed off. From within crawled an infant. The baby did not cry incessantly like a newborn; it merely glanced left and right, picked a direction, and crawled slowly forward with determined eyes. Soon, it vanished from the tree's sight. As for the orb's outer skin, after enduring wind, sun, and rain, it gradually dissolved into nutrients that the tree absorbed. ... In the sky, terrible tremors and firelight raged everywhere, as if a brutal war were underway. A figure silently arrived near the tree. "How can it be a tree?" "Could something have gone wrong with the lock-on?" "This damn place..." In the man's hand stood a mechanical, one-eyed miniature figure. A golden gleam shone from its eye, pointing directly toward the tree ahead. His expression laced with confusion and anxiety, the man fiddled with it, yet the direction of the figure's gaze never shifted. Cursing loudly in fury, the man hurled the mechanical puppet onto the ground. High above, cultivators seemed to take note of his presence below. His expression changing slightly, the man turned into a streak of golden light and fled. Uncounted days passed, and the mechanical puppet became buried deep underground. Suns rose and moons set; the scars of the earth-shattering war were gradually worn away by the passage of time. Occasional mortals who passed by this spot always felt immense peace of mind. Thus, people began choosing to settle down, and a mortal town emerged around it. Around this tree lived ten generations of mortals. Their temperaments were remarkably tranquil. Though living mundane lives, they remained content with their lot, laughing off any hardship they encountered. It was not until the descendant of the eleventh generation chose to become a storyteller to earn a living. Needing a fine gavel, he chopped a piece from the tree at home and polished it. ... His thoughts surging, the first thing Li Fan did was dig into the earth around the tree. Knowing divine sense would be useless, he had to do it by hand. Before long, he indeed unearthed the mechanical miniature figure the man had casually discarded centuries ago. Though buried for many years, now excavated again, it remained as pristine as new. Not a trace of time had touched it. Yet for some reason, the mechanical figure's third eye had closed. No matter how Li Fan channeled energy into it, it showed no response whatsoever. Fingering the mechanical artifact, Li Fan sensed a familiar aura. "Descend into the Mortal Dust..." Li Fan's heart grew somber. After pondering a moment, he made a decision. He brought out the white hoop, Descend into the Mortal Dust, and shone it upon the mechanical figure. Descend into the Mortal Dust was the physical condensation of the Great Dao Principle "Innate." For the past ten-odd years, Li Fan had held this white hoop, recalling what had manifested upon the Wordless Stele in his previous life. He had wished to comprehend this Great Dao. Yet to his disappointment, no matter how he contemplated it, he could not form his own understanding as he had with other True Immortal seal characters. It was as though... The principle of "Innate" in this world had already converged entirely into one place, beyond anyone else's reach. Li Fan had not forced the matter. Since Revert to the True had already bound the white hoop Descend into the Mortal Dust, being able to invoke it anytime and anywhere made little practical difference from comprehending it himself for the time being. Now, the light of the white hoop locked onto the mechanical figure. Beneath the shroud of white light, the miniature figure, which should have been decomposed into nothingness, remained completely unharmed! It was not that its rank surpassed Descend into the Mortal Dust, granting it immunity to the decomposition effect. Rather, upon sensing the mechanical figure, the light emitted by the white hoop suddenly turned green. The mechanical figure was thus spared from being decomposed. Bathed in this light, the dormant mechanical figure sprang back to life. It took flight, landed upon Li Fan's palm, and opened its third eye. As if searching for something, it rotated continuously. Yet for some reason, its spinning grew faster and faster. As though out of control, it spun madly without stopping, turning into a whirling top. "Is it broken?" Li Fan frowned slightly. He did not stop it for now, allowing the miniature figure to keep spinning. Li Fan first turned his gaze toward the green tree in the courtyard. "Centuries ago, the figure pointed to this tree because it had absorbed the outer shell encasing the infant." "That substance must have had an effect of awakening wisdom and enlightenment." "However, with the passage of time—and especially after I absorbed its essence just now—that effect has dwindled to virtually nothing, which is why the figure is seeking other directions." "Even after diminishing who knows how many times, it still had such an extraordinary effect on me. It is hard to imagine what it was like originally." Li Fan's eyes flickered as he pondered further. "The white hoop Descend into the Mortal Dust responded to the mechanical figure. That proves beyond doubt they share the same origin..." "In that case, my guess in the previous life was indeed correct: the one suppressed at the deepest layer of the Nether Prison truly hails from beyond the High Wall." Li Fan's expression grew solemn. Indeed, the male figure that appeared in the tree's memory was precisely the skeleton Li Fan had encountered in the deepest depths of the Nether Prison in his previous life— the cultivator who called himself Qin Zhuang! "I searched his soul, yet that memory was nowhere to be found." "He clearly concealed and fabricated his past through some secret technique. Impressive methods!" Li Fan inwardly praised him. Rather than feeling anger at being deceived, he felt a spark of excitement. "He thought his actions were seamless, never imagining that everything that occurs leaves a trace." "Under ordinary circumstances, such a trace would be nearly impossible to find. But before the Xuanhuang Illusory Array, where all living beings are equal, it has finally come to light!" Li Fan recalled the figure of the infant emerging from the sphere in the tree's memory. "Qin Zhuang... I'll call him that for now." "He entered within the High Wall seemingly to track down that infant." "Which means that infant also came from beyond the High Wall?" "Qin Zhuang is linked to the Heavenly Sword Sect. Could this infant also be a descendant of the Heavenly Sword Sect?" In an instant, thousands of questions surfaced in Li Fan's mind. In this life, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals' Nether Prison had already been enveloped by the Xuanhuang Multitude Illusory Array. Qin Zhuang, too, had inevitably fallen into the illusion. Yet, just as in the previous life's probing, Qin Zhuang likely would not show any flaws. "Failing twice in a row..." "It seems methods capable of resisting illusory arrays are quite widespread beyond the High Wall." Li Fan pondered for a moment, deciding against rushing to capture and interrogate Qin Zhuang. "If he can even be immune to an immortal array, ordinary physical punishment would be equally useless." "I must upgrade to more specialized methods. Perhaps once I achieve Dao Integration, I will have new means." ... Gathering his thoughts, Li Fan looked once more at the spinning mechanical figure. It still showed no sign of stopping. Pondering, Li Fan observed it closely. "It looks like it's spinning, but there are subtle pauses between each rotation." "This behavior looks as if..." "It has located many different targets simultaneously. And these targets are scattered across the Xuanhuang Realm?" Li Fan arrived at a mind-boggling conclusion. "Wait, could it be..." In a flash, an idea struck Li Fan like lightning. To verify his suspicion, Li Fan held the mechanical figure and slowly flew in a certain direction. As he drew closer, sure enough, the frequency with which the figure snapped toward his heading increased. Eventually, Li Fan arrived at his destination. Looking at the miniature figure that had finally ceased spinning, Li Fan let out a meaningful smile. Upon the wooden plaque of the building before him were three bold characters: Thousand Li Hall! The mechanical figure's third eye fixed straight upon Jiao Xiuyuan, who was deep in slumber within the hall. Then, as if its energy had once again been exhausted, it slowly closed. "That infant back then was actually him." "Jiao Xiuyuan came from beyond the High Wall?" "Yet unlike Qin Zhuang, he cannot resist the illusory array..." Thoughts churned within Li Fan's mind. He then closed his eyes, stood quietly for a moment, and, carrying the mechanical figure, entered the Xuanhuang Multitude Grand Array. Within the illusory array, Jiao Xiuyuan was carrying on as usual, hawking his wares and conducting business. The moment Li Fan appeared before him, Jiao Xiuyuan seemed to sense something; his hawking came to an abrupt halt, and his gaze fell upon the mechanical figure in Li Fan's hand. Li Fan feigned turning to leave. "Fellow Daoist, please wait!" Jiao Xiuyuan shouted repeatedly, stepping outside to block Li Fan's path. "Since you're already here, why pass by without stepping in? Come inside and take a seat," Jiao Xiuyuan said with a broad smile, a touch of honest simplicity showing on his dark face. Bearing the consummate professionalism of a merchant, he did not steal another glance at the figure in Li Fan's hand. Li Fan stowed the figure away and sighed. "It's an ancestral item. I originally intended to sell it, but after thinking it over, I decided against it." "Farewell!" Li Fan clasped his hands and moved to depart once more. "Don't be in such a hurry to leave, Fellow Daoist! Your face strikes me as so familiar and friendly. If you're facing any difficulties, speak freely. If it's within my power, I will surely help you," Jiao Xiuyuan said, patting his chest loudly with a display of righteous gallantry. Li Fan hesitated briefly before finally sitting down. Without a sound, Jiao Xiuyuan closed up Thousand Li Hall and shut the doors, focusing entirely on dealing with Li Fan alone. "To tell you the truth, Fellow Daoist, ever since I was born, I have been having a recurring dream." Li Fan paused thoughtfully, his opening words instantly capturing Jiao Xiuyuan's full attention. "In the dream, I see a beam of brilliance descending from the heavens. And from within a sphere, an infant crawls out..." As Li Fan spoke, he scrutinized Jiao Xiuyuan's reaction. Jiao Xiuyuan listened with rapt fascination, yet contrary to Li Fan's expectations, he showed not the slightest anomaly. "I suspect this dream might be related to the miniature figure passed down in my family," Li Fan added.