The Celestial God's Methods

Immediately after, He Lingchuan's vision went black. It was as if he had shut his eyes himself, yet dizziness spun through his head. ... He had no idea what was happening when someone shoved him hard. "Don't just stand here blocking people, will you?" He shuddered. The canopy, the starry sky, the gathered gods, the balance scale, and that massive eyeball were all gone. He was standing right inside Chongyang Hall, surrounded by a bustling sea of people. Everything went on as normal, indifferent to the fact that his world had just been turned upside down. Gathering his wits, he turned around and saw a fleshy-faced, middle-aged woman glaring at him indignantly. "Are you going to worship or not? If you're not, get out of the way! What's the idea, standing there like a wooden post?" "Oh." He Lingchuan wasn't angry in the slightest; if anything, he felt rather grateful to her. "Please, after you." He stepped back two paces. Lu Shishi looked at him with a smile. "A-Are you all right?" "I'm all right." He Lingchuan rubbed his neck, his brows furrowed tightly. "What happened to me just now?" An overwhelming exhaustion suddenly washed over him, and warm liquid began trickling from beneath his nose. "You suddenly stood there without moving. I called you twice, but you didn't answer," Lu Shishi said with concern. "Oh my, your nose is bleeding!" "Mm." He had a feeling Lu Shishi knew full well what had transpired. "My head is pounding. Is there somewhere I can rest?" She let out a soft cry. "Then let's hurry back to the Cloud Gallery." "Alright." He Lingchuan took a step and swayed twice as though he could barely keep his feet, leaning his entire weight against her. Lu Shishi hadn't expected him to collapse without warning and was taken aback, but the next second she propped him up with a single hand. Huh, this girl's cultivation was not weak at all; he hadn't noticed earlier. Lu Shishi steadily supported He Lingchuan and waved to the nearby palace guards. "Over here, lend a hand!" The palace guards usually looked down their noses at everyone, yet at her gesture, they hurried over in a flash. Supporting He Lingchuan, they led him straight out of the hall, paying no heed to the curious stares of the onlookers. "Who's that? Why are the palace guards helping him out?" The fleshy-faced woman who had shoved him grew flustered and quietly slipped back into the crowd. He Lingchuan acted as though he hadn't heard the whispers behind them. He hadn't been faking—he genuinely felt miserable. His head throbbed as if it were about to burst, cold sweat had soaked the back of his robe, and his body felt heavier than a thousand jin. Though he had no precedent to go by, he deduced this was a sign of severe mental overexertion. He had stood in the hall from start to finish; every visitor there could attest to it. Yet the cosmic canopy, the stars, the scale pans, and that giant eye earlier hadn't been an illusion either. What on earth had he experienced? Since someone was taking care of him, He Lingchuan simply let his body go limp, closing his eyes to feign unconsciousness. Unable to support such a limp pile of mud, the guard had no choice but to hoist him onto his back and carry him all the way to the Cloud Gallery. The path was as bustling as ever, but none of it had anything to do with him. His world had been upended, but the world didn't care in the least. The Cloud Gallery was a reception hall where subjects and officials waited for audiences with the celestial gods. It had no beds, but there were daybeds. The guard laid him down on one. He Lingchuan didn't open his eyes. Naturally, someone slipped a pillow behind his head, wiped his face with a warm towel, and draped a light blanket over him. Lu Shishi even asked, "Would you like some water?" He nodded, of course, resting in the young girl's arms as she fed him warm water sip by sip. He also swallowed two small pills to replenish his spirit and boost his qi. To onlookers, his breathing gradually steadied, appearing as though he had drifted off to sleep. To a lamp warden of the Heavenly Palace, this was indeed the normal aftermath of undergoing divine judgment. There were even some unfortunate wretches who couldn't endure it at all and died on the spot. Though drowsy, He Lingchuan still strove to piece together what had just happened. When he first entered that starry void, he had thought his soul had left his body, dragged by the celestial god into the void or into some small world or realm of souls. Everything around him—the colossal balance scale, the boundless cosmos, the endless eyes—seemed to fit that conjecture. Yet once the curtain was torn away, the azure mark that suddenly flared in the void instantly shattered that illusion! He had seen that azure-glowing mark before. Last year, when he and He Chunhua traveled to the Panlong illusion, the avatar of the "celestial god" summoned by Nian Songyu had plunged straight into He Lingchuan's sea of consciousness, attempting to seize his body. Back then, this very mark had emerged from the depths of his sea of consciousness, and that divine avatar had been expelled in an instant. So when the azure mark appeared once more, He Lingchuan understood in a flash: To hell with a small world! To hell with a realm of souls! That place had been inside his own mind! Miaozhantian hadn't abducted his soul at all; she had charged straight into his mind and deliberately put on a stage set, decorating his sea of consciousness so elaborately that even its master couldn't recognize it! No, not just Miaozhantian—the watching gods as well! Those bastards had held a full-blown party inside his head! No wonder his skull felt like it was splitting open now, as though someone were carving at his nerves with a thousand blades. The celestial gods hadn't cared in the slightest about the consequences of doing so, let alone He Lingchuan's life or feelings. In their eyes, what difference was a mortal life from an ant's? If they accidentally crushed him to death, so be it. Yet how could an ordinary mortal's sea of consciousness withstand such devastation? That He Lingchuan hadn't been reduced to a drooling idiot or lunatic on the spot was all thanks to the constant tempering he had endured in Panlong City, which had forged his soul to be far more resilient than that of ordinary people! And yet, He Lingchuan's mood was light and buoyant, because the greatest crisis he had faced since arriving in this world had been narrowly overcome. Miaozhantian's infallible "Dharma Eye" had failed against him. If the god hadn't trusted the power of the Eye of Truth, she wouldn't have brought out the touchstone against him. Conversely, because the scale judged that he spoke the truth, the celestial gods would accept it as fact. He Lingchuan didn't believe the Pupil of Mulian would show him any leniency. That meant something on him had blocked or even distorted its vision, duping it into believing every word he uttered was genuine and true. By now, He Lingchuan no longer believed in "coincidence." With people right beside him, he couldn't reach into his robes. But he remembered with absolute certainty the warmth that had suddenly radiated from his chest while he stood alone before the celestial god. Was it that item that helped him survive Mulian's trial? If so, had the celestial gods dispelled their suspicions regarding him? If the answer was yes, any resistance he faced in Lingxu City going forward would be drastically reduced. Risking the trip up Mount Xu this time had indeed been worth it. Yet the sinister malice and versatile methods of the celestial gods still exceeded his expectations. This was an inquiry on an entirely different plane, bypassing all outward appearances to interrogate the deepest recesses of his inner self. The strange thing was that not one of the three questions posed by the celestial god had anything to do with the case of the elixir of immortality. He had clearly been the original investigator of the elixir case; he had thought the god would at least ask about certain points of suspicion, such as whether he had any connection to Mai Xuewen and Xi Yunhe. Who could have guessed she wouldn't mention it at all? Did this mean that in the eyes of the celestial gods, the elixir case and the Dafang Pot were simply not in the same league? It wasn't even on par with the Mou Kingdom to the east. There was another doubt in He Lingchuan's mind: Why had the Dafang Pot shown no reaction whatsoever? His soul had always been staunchly protected by the Dafang Pot—a fact verified long ago through the soul-snatching mirror. Yet this time, the gods had stormed straight into his mind—effectively raiding his home base—and the Dafang Pot hadn't made the slightest peep. Had it done so on purpose, to keep from exposing itself? He Lingchuan recalled how the Dafang Pot had responded when the Hundred Faces Nightmare attacked previously: It had first disguised itself as a dream, allowing Hundred Faces to enter Panlong City, before dispatching the giant crimson shadow to devour him, even letting the young Juluo tree share in the spoils. Had it played the same trick this time, only using a different method? Yet for He Lingchuan, that was far too perilous. If the celestial god had resolved to take his life, couldn't she have snuffed out his soul in a single blow? Thus, the Dafang Pot had also taken a desperate gamble. After all, had it stepped forth to protect He Lingchuan, the situation would truly have plunged into an irrecoverable abyss. The celestial gods had likely been waiting for just such a reaction. Through this incident, He Lingchuan finally confirmed: The Dafang Pot possessed sentience and could think! The Hundred Faces Nightmare's judgment of it had been right: It was alive. Thinking this, even though he had essentially been hung out to dry by the Dafang Pot today, He Lingchuan felt much more at ease. If it could weigh pros and cons and knew how to disguise itself, it wouldn't expose itself needlessly just for a bite of food. On that front, at least, He Lingchuan no longer had to worry. It was better than a lifeless object, after all. Forcing himself to think when both body and spirit were depleted was just courting misery. Once he sorted out these crucial points, he could no longer hold out. After murmuring a few instructions to the soul-snatching mirror, he fell sound asleep. Hah, when the celestial gods forcibly invaded his sea of consciousness earlier, this incompetent mirror hadn't noticed a thing. What good was it anyway? ... He Lingchuan slept like the dead, without so much as a single dream. He didn't know how much time had passed when someone shook his shoulder. "He Xiao, wake up! Time to go back!" He Lingchuan strained his eyes open and saw Fu Shanyue. His head was still foggy. He forced himself to sit up. "You've seen the Demon Emperor? Is it my turn?" Fu Shanyue rubbed his nose. "Uh, yes, I saw him. But when the Demon Emperor heard you collapsed from injuries, he told you to rest and recover down the mountain—no need to see him." He Lingchuan let out an "oh," his mind clear on the reality: The Demon Emperor had never intended to grant an audience to a nobody like him in the first place; summoning him up the mountain was merely to let the celestial gods examine him thoroughly. Now that they had their answers, he was no longer important, and the emperor couldn't be bothered with him. "How did you manage to faint out of nowhere?" "Too exhausted." Lu Shishi was right beside them. He Lingchuan glanced at her and pressed his neck, producing a faint cracking sound. "I'm afraid I haven't quite recovered from the bombing." Fu Shanyue grunted and stood up. "Then let's head down." Wearing a smile, Lu Shishi escorted the distinguished guests to the tower to depart via the teleportation array. ... They retraced their route, exchanging no words along the way. Upon returning to the inn, Fu Shanyue pulled He Lingchuan into the courtyard of their guest quarters and set up a barrier before asking: "What on earth happened?" With this guy's temperament and cultivation, fainting right in Chongyang Hall? Fu Shanyue would bet anything that something fishy was going on. He Lingchuan didn't hide it from him. Clutching his head, he recounted in detail how the celestial gods had invaded his sea of consciousness. His head was still buzzing even now. Naturally, he omitted any mention of the Dafang Pot. Fu Shanyue's expression changed sharply. "What? Acting with such utter brazenness?"