Mitian had admitted with her own mouth that the only way to rapidly revive heaven-and-earth spiritual energy was through the fall of gods.
Clearly, she meant the Emperor's Flowing Dew.
For after the Emperor's Flowing Dew fell twice a year, He Lingchuan could clearly feel that the surrounding spiritual energy had grown thicker than before.
This corroborated what the soul-snatching mirror had heard from Tianshengzi: the mortal realm and the so-called divine realm had always existed in a zero-sum balance where one's gain was the other's loss. Over the three millennia since the celestial gods departed, the world's spiritual energy had never returned to the level of the immortal era precisely because the celestial gods used some method to siphon it away for their own use.
And as Mitian had also explained, that method was the "Heavenly Net" draining the nightmare energy of this realm.
The last time He Lingchuan had heard that term was from Fu Shanyue. When the second illusion appeared in the ruins of Thousand Stars City on the Twilight Plains, the Tianluo Star to the east had flared with dazzling radiance.
Evidently, this bright star could be seen as the celestial gods' lifeline—no, their umbilical cord. Through the Tianluo Star, mortal nightmare energy was delivered to the deities in an endless stream.
In the past, nightmare energy had come almost entirely via the Tianluo Star. If deities tried to obtain it privately, they could hardly scrounge up much, leaving them no choice but to take whatever came their way.
Yet Mitian was unwilling to remain idle, suddenly stepping out to stir the pot.
Earlier, she had mobilized the Panlong Army to invade Xiji, retrieving still-active divine remains from the Xiji royal palace, and then harnessed the power of the Dafang Pot to craft over a thousand Dragon-Torture Pillars!
The primary purpose of these artifacts was to gather the freshest nightmare energy right off the battlefield.
To put it plainly, it was diverting the flow right under the Tianluo Star's nose.
Since the mortal realm only produced a finite amount of nightmare energy within any given period, every fraction intercepted by a Dragon-Torture Pillar meant one less fraction gathered by the Tianluo Star.
Going forward, the more frequently Dragon-Torture Pillars were used in the mortal realm, or the more deities used them, the less nightmare energy the Tianluo Star would receive in return.
It was essentially smuggling.
The instinct of any living being was self-interest. With an instrument like this, how could any deity resist using it?
And if they used it, their peers would receive less—how could the others stand idly by?
Ultimately, nightmare energy was the most vital resource in the divine realm, and deities had their own hierarchies. How would the higher-ups and power-holders treat peers who chipped away at their foundation and stole their resources? And how would they treat the Dragon-Torture Pillars?
Just as Mitian had said, those twelve hundred Dragon-Torture Pillars were twelve hundred seeds of provocation and division. Once planted, they were bound to yield a harvest sooner or later.
When the celestial gods fell, their bone and blood essence would turn into Emperor's Flowing Dew, returning to the mortal realm.
Having grasped this cycle, He Lingchuan understood Mitian's shrewd calculation: disperse the Dragon-Torture Pillars as widely as possible among foreign gods and lesser deities, hoping to provoke internal conflict and strife in the divine realm over the distribution of nightmare energy.
The mortal realm and the divine realm were locked in a zero-sum game. Whichever side suffered more casualties among mortals or gods, the other side benefited accordingly.
Did Mitian's strategy work?
Consider just one point: the Dragon-Torture Pillar He Lingchuan had seized in reality had come from an acolyte of National Preceptor Shuangye of the Beijia Kingdom.
Where, then, had this National Preceptor obtained his Dragon-Torture Pillar?
Without a doubt, from followers of other gods in other nations.
The process of seizing the pillar could hardly have been pleasant. That proved Mitian's prediction: many of the Dragon-Torture Pillars scattered abroad would eventually fall into Beijia's hands.
What was more, He Lingchuan realized that if even a National Preceptor of Beijia was using a Dragon-Torture Pillar, it indicated that a deity likely stood behind him as well.
A deity unwilling to blend into the herd, one determined to secure nightmare energy for themselves.
If even Beijia's National Preceptor dared to do such a thing, how much friction would arise in the divine realm around nightmare energy?
Mitian's strategy was an open scheme. Once the Dragon-Torture Pillars were scattered, this causal chain was set in motion, almost impossible to alter by the will of god or mortal.
The pool of poisoned water she had stirred up more than a century ago was still sending ripples across the world today.
Outside the window, a lark was trilling through rising and falling cadences, determined to master a difficult melody before autumn arrived.
Wakened by its song, He Lingchuan recalled what he had witnessed in the dream and sighed unconsciously.
Mitian was a celestial god herself; why had she insisted on siding against her own kind, bent on murdering other celestial gods?
Yet another unsolved mystery.
And why had the Tianluo Star in the eastern sky reacted to the second illusion in the ruins of Thousand Stars City?
Did it have anything to do with the Dafang Pot?
Since the Tianluo Star was intimately tied to the deities, had the gods noticed the anomaly in the ruins of Thousand Stars City and dispatched Bai Ziqi to investigate for that very reason?
Where there was one clue, there might be a second, and after a second, a third. In the end, would Bai Ziqi's investigation trace back to him, He Lingchuan?
With Cen Boqing under arrest and Zhongsun Mou dead, the original adversaries from the courier case no longer posed a threat to He Lingchuan. Yet Bai Ziqi, representing the divine will, had immediately become his greatest trouble.
He Lingchuan could sense Bai Ziqi's extra attention on him.
He believed Bai Ziqi had no evidence in hand; otherwise, He Lingchuan would have been arrested long ago, even with Fu Shanyue running interference. But that man's intuition was far too sharp. If He Lingchuan let Bai Ziqi's gaze stay fixed on him, he feared he would give himself away sooner or later.
Did Panlong City's sudden reenactment of the Dragon-Torture Pillars' origin serve as a hint that he could try crafting one to divert trouble elsewhere and draw away Bai Ziqi's attention? After all, Mitian had stated outright that certain Dragon-Torture Pillars tainted with the Dafang Pot's aura would alert celestial gods and draw unwanted scrutiny.
After all, the divine bone hung around his neck, and the Dafang Pot was constantly peering into his movements, so it had to be acutely aware of his present circumstances.
The problem was, where could he find divine bone to forge a Dragon-Torture Pillar? The necklace around his neck was out of the question.
Right then, scratching came at the door.
Jiao Yu had arrived.
"Emissary Bai has concluded his official duties in Chiyan. Tomorrow he will escort the prisoners back to Lingxu, and the crown prince and the rest of us will be traveling along."
He Lingchuan was surprised. "Has Emissary Bai finished investigating his other case as well?"
"Can't say." The tiger did not care about that. "The crown prince guesses other demon kings may have jointly petitioned the Emperor demanding an investigation into the immortality elixir case, prompting the Emperor to urgently recall Emissary Bai to report. Word is that the case is already the talk of the town in Lingxu City, and the royal court is probably feeling immense pressure."
Outlaws poaching demons for their inner pearls had frayed the nerves of demon civilians and the army alike.
Illicit refining and trading of immortality elixirs, meanwhile, struck a raw nerve with the celestial gods.
Lingxu City likely found the situation hard to bear as well, which was why they needed Bai Ziqi, the lead investigator on the case, to hurry back and answer to all sides.
Moreover, with more and more factions becoming entangled in the elixir case, Lingxu City found it a thorny mess.
He Lingchuan stroked his chin in thought. This was a mixed bag of news.
Looking at the bright side first: since Bai Ziqi had been ordered back to the capital, he would not be able to divide himself and remain in northern Chiyan to continue investigating. He Lingchuan believed Bai Ziqi would leave subordinates behind to keep sniffing around, but that would not be Bai Ziqi himself.
As for the bad news, He Lingchuan would soon be leaving Chiyan's borders, after which the protection of Chiyan's ruler and prince would diminish drastically. Once they reached Lingxu City, if Bai Ziqi was still interested in him, well...
For now, he needed to find a way to cool Bai Ziqi's interest in him.
He Lingchuan patted the massive tiger head. "Before we leave, I need to buy a dozen or so sesame flatbreads for trail rations. Hmm, how about twenty jin of black ox shank meat for you? My treat."
The tiger licked his chops and flicked his whip-like tail in agreement.
Baishaqu was rich in waterways, and the local black oxen spent years swimming and grazing on water plants, giving them fine, well-built physiques and excellent meat. Jiao Yu was especially fond of them.
He Lingchuan then summoned the goshawk outside the window. "Run an errand for me. The reward is a hundred jin of rabbit meat. How about it?"
Now that Fu Shanyue had arrived in Baishaqu, He Lingchuan's stint as special envoy was over, and strictly speaking, the avian guards no longer had to take orders from him. But the goshawk found him a good fellow to get along with—he had never shortchanged it on food, drink, or entertainment along the way—so it asked without a second thought, "Where to?"
"Deliver a letter to Lingxu City for me," He Lingchuan said with a smile. "Payment upon delivery, since we'll be meeting in Lingxu City anyway."
"Just flying ahead of you, isn't it?" The goshawk had a blunt temperament. "Hand it over."
He Lingchuan handed over the written letter and gave the address. The goshawk flapped its wings and took off at once.
Watching its silhouette shrink into a dark speck and disappear into the horizon, He Lingchuan let out a soft breath.
There was a major loophole in the explanation he had given Bai Ziqi. If he could patch it up, it might dispel much of Bai Ziqi's suspicion. Everything hinged on the results of the goshawk's trip. He could only hope all went smoothly.
Shortly after, passing by Chaohu Pagoda, the familiar sight stirred He Lingchuan's memories, and he suddenly thought of Mai Xuewen.
He wondered where that fellow was now.
Before fleeing, he had offered He Lingchuan a piece of advice: pull out in time to avoid ending up crushed to pieces.
Yet He Lingchuan was doing the exact opposite, now preparing to plunge right into the center of the whirlpool.
Well, it was too late to run now anyway. He could only forge ahead and splash his way back and forth through this muddy water.
Fulfilling his commission and retrieving Zhu Erniang's cast-off husk was merely a modest goal, something he hoped to accomplish along the way.
On this trip to Lingxu City, He Lingchuan needed to eliminate a dire peril:
He had to uncover how the celestial gods and the Emperor tracked the Dafang Pot, and cut them off.
As the bearer of the divine bone necklace, he could sense the Dafang Pot growing more powerful and active by the day.
A giant whale could hardly swim in the shallows; an elephant could never hide behind a monkey.
Sooner or later, the Dafang Pot would become impossible to conceal. If its aura leaked out even once more, he would face endless pursuit by the celestial gods.
How long could he keep hiding?
In recent days, the retired official Xiang Yan had often liked to say during their chats, "No need to rush; plan step by step."
Yet He Lingchuan did not know how much time he had left. He could not afford to take things slowly.
He had better strike first if he wanted to prevent the tragedy of the Yuan Kingdom and Panlong City's downfall from repeating itself on him.
This was truly walking straight into the tiger's den knowing full well a tiger dwelt within.
What others saw as the most prosperous realm in the world was, to him, a dragon's pool and tiger's den, full of raging rapids and treacherous obstacles.
And yet, irony of ironies, he had no choice but to go.
Still, he had his own advantages. He was just one person, able to advance or retreat at will and act with flexibility.
Beijia harbored deep hatred for the Yuan Kingdom and cared about Panlong City, but they would pay no heed to a nobody from the common wilderness like him.
The wind in Baishaqu was turning cool, blowing against him with a crispness that swept away all restlessness. He Lingchuan cracked his knuckles with a couple of pops.
The greatest city under heaven—here I come.
Chapter 546