Chapter 110: The Transformation of the Heart's Ocean

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Inside the guest room, Shangguan Chuci slipped off her moon-white silk robe and went over to the bathing tub that had long since been prepared. Steam rose from the hot water, and a layer of vivid red rose petals floated upon its surface.

A small footstool had been placed beside the tub.

Shangguan Chuci removed her hairpin, and her dark hair came cascading down like a black waterfall, falling all the way to her waist.

The vigorous, heroic bearing she usually carried had, at this moment, melted entirely into a tenderness that seemed to wind around one’s fingers.

She lifted her slender jade foot and lightly stepped onto the stool.

Then she extended that delicate foot, fairer than frost and snow, and gently touched the water with her glistening toes. The rose petals that had been floating lazily upon the surface stirred in the rising steam. Some drifted nearby, softly kissing her smooth, pale skin.

Shangguan Chuci seemed to find it ticklish. Her toes curled slightly, and the petals scattered like a flock of startled red butterflies, though they continued circling around her as if loath to leave.

Only after testing the temperature did she slowly lower her entire graceful body into the warm water.

The ripples pushed the petals aside, but as her alluring form entered the tub, they gathered once more, forming a perfectly placed crimson barrier over the most captivating springtime beauty of her chest, leaving only her elegant shoulders and clearly defined collarbones exposed.

Amid the curling steam, her already peerless face was now flushed with color across the cheeks. Every glance from the tips of her brows to the corners of her eyes was indescribably soft and alluring. Compared with the dashing Young Master Chu of ordinary days, she seemed like an entirely different person.

She extended one jade arm and used a small wooden dipper to scoop up a handful of hot water, pouring it slowly over her shoulder.

Droplets slid down her polished skin like morning dew rolling across a fresh lotus leaf.

Suddenly, her delicate brows drew together, and she let out an exceedingly soft hiss.

The hot water had flowed over her left shoulder and happened to touch the wound Lu Chenyuan had left behind, sending a searing pain through her in an instant.

She instinctively turned her head and gazed intently at her snowy shoulder.

Upon its smooth, delicate skin was a distinct bite mark. It was not especially deep, but the imprint was clear. Against such fine flesh, it resembled a slight flaw in white jade—shocking and impossible to ignore.

As she stared at the mark, her heart stirred for no apparent reason. At the same time, she recalled the seemingly calm yet earth-shattering words he had spoken in the woodshed:

“In my previous life, I was a Sinful Immortal. Three thousand years ago, I was the one who severed the path to heaven available to all living beings.”

The words had already left her shaken when she first heard them. Now, as she savored them more carefully, the shock they evoked seemed even stronger.

“If what he said is true…”

She pondered silently. “Then in his previous life, was he not a truly mighty figure in the cultivation world—one who could turn the clouds and overturn the rain, one who held the universe in his grasp?”

The feeling of having such an existence beside her was, to be honest, rather subtle.

As she thought this, her fingertip unconsciously brushed over the bite mark. The skin there was still faintly warm, as though the young man’s presence lingered, refusing to disperse.

“Both Perfected Li and Qian Dahai called him a Dao-Origin Embryo. Clearly, they had recognized the extraordinary nature he was born with. Yet how could they know that the mere words ‘Dao-Origin Embryo’ were utterly insufficient to describe his earth-shaking origins?”

“The imperial court and the Imperial Astronomical Bureau merely say that something is amiss in the Abyss of Heaven, while remaining deliberately reticent about the one who severed the heavens. They are clearly concealing something. What, exactly, are they afraid of? Or perhaps—what are they protecting?”

“If I could unravel the mystery of his origins, perhaps I might glimpse the true source behind this world and the rampant corruption of the Dao that has spread for three thousand years.”

The county princess shook her head with a smile and murmured softly:

“Who could have imagined that this great secret, one that affects the fortune of the Nine Provinces and concerns the immortal path of all ages, would be tied to such an utterly ordinary-looking young man…”

…

When Lu Chenyuan opened his eyes, he found that he was no longer in the woodshed. Instead, he was surrounded by an endless, boundless void of primordial chaos.

In his hand, he held an ancient, crude lantern, within which black flames burned without end.

“Could this place be my inner sea and consciousness realm?”

He instinctively lowered his head to look at himself, only to discover that he still appeared human. He was not the terrifying monster covered in eyes.

At that moment, the chaotic world before him suddenly began to tremble, as though an earth-shattering upheaval were about to take place.

Lu Chenyuan focused his gaze. In the distant firmament, the lonely star that had hung by itself in the void suddenly blazed with magnificent radiance. Its form also seemed considerably larger than before.

His mind was drawn toward it. Looking more closely, he faintly glimpsed, deep within those dazzling rays, the phantom image of a magnificent world.

Countless jade palaces and jeweled towers rose from the earth, soaring into the clouds. Their entire forms were crystalline, glittering in the night like a river of stars.

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He vaguely recognized this scene. It was precisely the strange vision he had witnessed the day before, when his mind had been clouded and he had bitten Young Master Chu on the shoulder.

“That must be the dreamscape Young Master Chu described when she sought her master’s help interpreting her dream…”

“But I wonder why such a change has occurred within my inner sea.”

As Lu Chenyuan’s thoughts surged, another astonishing transformation arose at the opposite end of the inner sea.

Beside the island built from white bones and darkwood, in the empty void where nothing had existed before, a phantom image of a palace lantern slowly emerged.

The lantern was roughly thirty percent the size of the island. Its design was elegant and ancient, its frame made of colored glass and its surface of thin gauze. It hung upside down in the midst of that chaotic world.

There was no candle flame inside it. Instead, countless goose-yellow points of light moved and danced within, like fireflies on a summer night, gathering and dispersing unpredictably.

Lu Chenyuan stared in astonishment, unable to tell where the object had come from.

At that moment, the points of light within the lantern seemed to notice his gaze. With a sudden flutter, they all shrank toward one corner and huddled together, trembling as though they were a timid girl seeking a secluded place to hide after being frightened.

The sight struck Lu Chenyuan as both amusing and strangely familiar.

His heart stirred, and a thought rose at once:

“Could this palace lantern—and those points of light—actually be Miss Lin from the Demon Suppression Bureau?!”

He had never imagined that, despite their brief encounter, he had already absorbed the mark of this young female officer into his inner sea.

“Since she can manifest here, it must be because she and Young Master Chu once entered my birdcage world…”

Although he could roughly guess the reason, he still could not determine the precise rule governing who would appear in his inner sea.

Before he could think it through, darkness suddenly filled his vision, and everything around him faded away.

Lu Chenyuan abruptly opened his eyes. He instinctively glanced at the sky outside, but it was still pitch-black, and he could not help feeling slightly relieved.

After all, he and Shangguan Chuci had agreed that he would rise early so that they could avoid the notice of the others and she could teach him a new Dao art.

It would not have been good if he had overslept because of a dream and missed his appointment with Shangguan Chuci.

He let out a long breath. Although his adventure through the inner sea had lasted only a brief instant, it had consumed even more of his mind and spirit than a genuine life-and-death battle.

“Since I’m awake, I may as well stay up. I mustn’t miss my appointment with Young Master Chu.”

The youth sat up, drawing the doll beside the bed into his arms, and murmured to himself:

“When Young Master Chu arrives, I must tell her about this strange vision and hear what insight she has to offer.”

He instinctively tilted his head and listened. The long street outside the courtyard was utterly silent, save for several faint barks in the distance. He heard no familiar sound of the night watchman’s clapper.

That was only natural. First, a cultivator had died in the street. Then someone at the fish market had transformed into a merperson on the spot. In such a state of alarm and danger, who would dare walk alone through these deserted streets in the dead of night?

Though Lu Chenyuan had no watchman’s call by which to judge the hour, he had wandered the world with his master since childhood and had long since acquired the ability to read the stars and tell the time.

He climbed down from the bed and went to the window of the dilapidated woodshed, then looked up.

In the pitch-black night sky hung a deep-blue wound in the heavens.

“I did not expect that not only would the celestial phenomena seen in those strange dreams change, but even when my spirit wandered through my inner sea, I would still see this wound in the sky.”

Having learned from Shangguan Chuci that the wound in the heavens was not visible only to him but was a genuine, observable phenomenon—and that the imperial court had even established star-watchers within the Imperial Astronomical Bureau specifically to monitor its changes—he felt an indescribable sensation as he looked at the deep-blue scar once more.

After thinking it over, he decided it was probably a sense of unreality.

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Even when his master had said that he himself had been an Immortal Emperor in a former life, Lu Chenyuan had never truly believed it. After all, such a thing was far too distant from the life he had experienced.

Yet today, someone had suddenly told him that his master had not been lying—that she had merely revealed the truth in the guise of a joke. His feelings were naturally exceedingly complicated.

Lu Chenyuan shook his head with a bitter smile and set the wound in the heavens aside, turning instead to observe the hour.

On the eastern horizon, at the edge of the densest darkness, a faint pale glow had already appeared. In the western sky, a waning moon hung at an angle, curved like a hook. Its cold, clear hue had faded to a pale white, and its radiance was no longer as bright as before. Clearly, it was close to setting.

“The Three Stars are in the sky, and the moon is already waning… It must be the fifth watch.”

Lu Chenyuan pondered silently. “Ordinarily, I sleep until the sixth watch, rising only when the sun has begun to brighten the edge of the sky. Today, however, I woke an entire hour early because of that dream in my inner sea.”

“But since I have an appointment with Young Master Chu, this is rather convenient.”

Shangguan Chuci had also risen early that day. Lu Chenyuan had not waited long before she arrived outside the woodshed and knocked on the door.

When she saw that Lu Chenyuan was already awake and waiting for her, Shangguan Chuci could not help smiling. At the very least, it showed that he had truly taken her words to heart.

“Young Master Chu, after I fell asleep last night, I entered my inner sea again.”

“Oh? Did anything change?”

Lu Chenyuan immediately described the changes in his inner sea to Shangguan Chuci in concise terms, including the transformations of the star and the island of white bones, as well as the newly added upside-down lantern symbolizing Miss Lin.

After listening, the county princess’s feelings grew somewhat complicated. In her former life, she had played plenty of cultivation games featuring affection systems, but this was her first time being the one whose affection level was being raised. The sensation was undeniably peculiar.

After a moment, she could only shake her head and sigh.

“Brother Lu, your inner sea is certainly becoming more and more lively.”

Lu Chenyuan smiled bitterly. “Young Master Chu, please stop making fun of me. I do not even know why this is happening.”

Shangguan Chuci gave a faint smile, looking thoughtful.

“Judging from what we know, for someone to occupy a place within your inner sea, they likely need to share a connection with you on the level of cause and effect.”

Lu Chenyuan considered this and said, “That does seem reasonable.”

Shangguan Chuci suddenly changed the subject.

“You said that when you observed my star in your inner sea, you could see the phantom image of another world?”

“Yes. In fact, this is not the first time I have seen that scene.”

He also described the vision he had witnessed the previous time, when he had bitten Shangguan Chuci’s shoulder while his mind was clouded, and sincerely praised the magnificence and wonder of her dreamscape.

After listening, Shangguan Chuci’s delicate brows drew together slightly.

All along, her greatest question had been whether the memories of that other world were real or fabricated.

Lu Chenyuan’s words had not dispelled her doubts. Instead, they had deepened them.

The key uncertainty was whether Lu Chenyuan could see the world of her previous life because he had synchronized with her consciousness and memories, or because he had truly glimpsed a fragment of that world.

If it was the latter, then the memories of her previous life were all real—and if she wished to return to that former world, Lu Chenyuan would be the key.

Lu Chenyuan asked, “What did Young Master Chu think of?”

Shangguan Chuci replied, “I was wondering what changes might occur in the star if the bond between us deepened further. Would you see more things within its radiance? Might you even have the chance to make direct contact…?”

The youth’s eyes widened slightly.

“Direct contact? That would be incredible.”

Shangguan Chuci shook her head with a smile.

“It is only a conjecture. But in truth, I do not particularly like the feeling.”

Lu Chenyuan was puzzled. “Why not?”

Shangguan Chuci did not answer. Instead, she said, “Let us not speak of this any longer. I should tell you about the offensive Dao art I am preparing to pass on to you.”

“The Dao art I intend to teach you today is called Palm Thunder.”

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