Jiangshan Fengwuzhi

Chapter 365 Memory
"I... don't want to accept my fate."

Gu Jingnian didn't like to confide in others, but looking at his mother's face, he hesitated and finally spoke.

“I’ve rebelled many times in my life, but each time I’ve been manipulated like a pawn. Behind every conspiracy is a deeper conspiracy, behind every strong enemy is an even stronger enemy, behind every darkness is an even darker darkness… You’re the same, aren’t you? Wearing this face, you fool me and manipulate me.”

A faint, gentle smile appeared on Qiu Funan's frail face. She moved her bloodless lips and asked softly, "Shall we try again?"

The two looked at each other, and Gu Jingnian seemed to see her life of fighting bloody battles on the land of Yue, where corpses littered the fields, and how she used her own bodies to build a door to survival in the furnace of despair.

The person in front of him may not be his mother, but his mother was still fighting until the very last moment.

Gu Jingnian made his choice quickly.

He lived his life like a dog that kept getting up only to have its legs broken; sometimes he was so tired that he didn't want to get up anymore.

but……

"Okay, let's try again."

The Realm Lord asked, "Aren't you afraid that I'm also using you?"

Gu Jingnian said, "Then I will resist you again."

The Lord of the Realm smiled slightly, allowing Gu Jingnian to take the two mirror-like stones before explaining their purpose.

Have you read "The Records of Local Customs"?

“A little,” Gu Jingnian said. “I still haven’t been able to read it all, especially the ones with annotations from the ancient scholars.”

"Then, come and take a look."

The Lord of the Realm grasped Gu Jingnian's wrist.

Gu Jingnian felt a sharp pain in his head, and the scene before his eyes blurred, plunging him into a memory.

He turned around and found himself walking side by side with Qiu Funan, who was dressed in military uniform and covered in blood.

At this time, Qiu Funan was still very young. His helmet was split in half, and there was a wound on half of his head as well.

She didn't care at all, casually tossed aside her helmet, and strode towards the palace ahead.

"Mother?" Gu Jingnian asked softly.

Qiu Funan heard nothing at all.

Many people were kneeling outside the palace, led by a frail woman. Gu Qingnian recognized her as Princess Wei Li of Yue.

At that time, Wei Li was still quite young and inexperienced, with an undisguised hatred in her eyes. But she was indeed stunningly beautiful, no wonder even someone like Shen Jichi was moved by her.

Qiu Funan didn't pay much attention to Wei Li. She climbed the steps and went deep into the palace, where soldiers of the Undying Army swarmed around her.

"leader."

"You caught them?"

"Yes, he could have escaped, but he went back to retrieve a book and was captured by us."

"Take me there."

Qiu Funan quickened her pace and came to see a huge black iron cage.

An old man with disheveled hair was imprisoned in a cage, several spears piercing his shoulder blades, and his limbs were chained with thick, black iron chains.

"Master Xuandao!"

Qiu Funan shouted as soon as she entered the hall.

Shi Xuandao then raised his head.

This was the first time Gu Jingnian had met this extraordinary man whose name he had heard countless times. He had white hair and deep, unfathomable eyes that were impossible to look away from.

However, Gu Jingnian felt that the face looked somewhat familiar.

After looking at it carefully for a while, he murmured, "Liu Yuchuan?"

The Shi Xuandao before him clearly had a face that was very similar to Liu Yuchuan's, except that Shi Xuandao was much older, while Liu Yuchuan was in his prime more than ten years later.

"Qiu Funan, instead of being grateful to this old man for bestowing upon you extraordinary abilities, you repay kindness with enmity. Aren't you afraid of divine retribution?"

"You old scoundrel, you have brought disaster to the people, you deserve to die a thousand deaths... Drag him out and cut him into a thousand pieces, then let the soldiers eat his flesh!"

Qiu Funan didn't say much, and directly gave the order.

Gu Jingnian walked toward a box placed in the hall, where some scrolls were scattered.

He instinctively bent down to pick it up and unfold it.

The moment his fingers slipped through the scrolls, he realized that he was merely an observer of this memory and was not allowed to touch the scrolls.

But the next moment, the scene before him changed, and he was seen reading under the lamp in Qiu Funan, with the books unfolding one by one in front of him.

An old notebook fell to the ground and was picked up by Qiu Funan.

"Hong?"

She murmured softly, her tone full of doubt.

“In the belly of the Central Plains there is a pool called ‘Hong’. If it is stained with blood, it will become angry. It draws on the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to cleanse itself. I sacrificed my blood to it to sweep away all the demons. If later generations fill Hong with their selfish desires, the mirror stone can be broken.”

These are the notes of the ancient sage.

Below, Shi Xuandao marked seven characters in fine, small regular script.

"The vast ocean is a furnace from which the world can be refined."

Qiu Funan turned to the next page, only to find that the next page had been torn out.

Puzzled, she continued reading.

After a long while, the scene changed again. Gu Jingnian returned to the stone platform, but he did not see himself and Yingyao. There was only a dying scholar sitting opposite Qiu Funan.

In an instant, the scholar turned to ashes, and Qiu Funan became the Lord of the Realm.

“The Records of Local Customs?” she murmured softly, then said, “I see.”

Having said that, Qiu Funan opened her eyes and looked at Gu Jingnian. They were back in this moment, back on the stone platform.

"do you understand?"

"not yet."

"Even Master Xuandao was deceived by the sages of Zhongzhou," the Realm Lord sighed. "Or perhaps it could be said that the ancient sages deceived him, but in a way, they didn't truly deceive him."

Gu Jingnian frowned in thought and asked, "Could it be... that 'the mirror stone can be broken' is a lie?"

Do you know what a mirror stone is?

"I don't know."

What is a boundary?

"The projection of the barbarian seas".

"Yes, everything here is... a reflection in a mirror."

Upon hearing the last three words, Gu Jingnian's mind stirred.

He looked down at the mirror-like stone in his hand and realized that it was not a broken hearthstone at all, but a mirror of the crafting world.

"Do you understand?" the Realm Lord asked.

"Yes."

"Then I'll tell you how to use these mirror stones... One of these two mirror stones can be used to create a boundary, and the other can be used to break a boundary, provided that you have enough spiritual power."

Gu Jingnian asked, "Which one creates boundaries? Which one breaks boundaries?"

"Then we need to ask you first: do you want to create a new world or break down a new one? If you want to create a new world, what kind of world do you want to create? If you want to break down a new world, which world do you want to break down?"

Gu Jingnian was slightly taken aback, but quickly came to an answer.

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Memories fade.

A drop of blood leaves the empty heart chamber and falls towards the lake at the speed of freefall.

Gu Jingnian forcefully slammed down the mirror-like stone. The stone fell much faster than the blood droplets, and in an instant, it crashed into the misty fog.

Suddenly, a hand grasped it.

It's Liu Yuchuan.

He hovered on the lake surface and, with a strange and difficult movement, caught the stone in a flash.

A passage I once read in "Fengwu Zhi" flashed through my mind.

Since he wanted to refine the world with the Hongchi Pool, how could he let Gu Jingnian break the furnace with the Mirror Stone?
However, in the next instant, he was struck hard on the back.

"Oh!"

Ying flapped her wings high, causing her to fall at an extremely fast speed.

He raised his fist and slammed it down hard.

As a descendant of the phoenix, she possesses extraordinary talent and rare opportunities. She first inherited her father's special abilities and then absorbed a large amount of spiritual energy from the realm lord... As for her strength, even she herself is not quite sure.

His fists were small, even somewhat immature.

But surprisingly, Liu Yuchuan couldn't dodge it.

With a loud bang, Liu Yuchuan's chest and back were shattered, and blood splattered into the lake below.

He fell down as well.

The spiritual energy in the lake circulated, rapidly helping him heal his wounds, which seemed like a good thing. However, deep within the lake, an extremely powerful force pulled him in.

"No!"

Liu Yuchuan screamed inwardly, trying his best to break free from that force.

He knew that the power came from Hong, and once he was absorbed into it, no matter how powerful he was, he would be refined away.

At this moment, he held nothing back and used all his strength to pull his body upwards.

But something was pulling him back.

Looking down, I saw the mirror stone in my hand.

It was frantically absorbing the spiritual energy from the lake and began to grow at a visible rate.

Liu Yuchuan had no choice but to let go... In fact, he could no longer hold on to it.

So, the moment he leaped up, the mirror stone fell down.

"Oh!"

Yingyao threw another punch.

Liu Yuchuan raised his hand and pushed out a water jet.

The small fist collided with the water dragon, creating countless splashes. Liu Yuchuan finally leaped out of the lake and landed on the jade stone by the lake like a falling leaf.

At the same time, Gu Jingnian and Wei Huang exchanged two blows in the air before moving away from each other and landing.

Looking into the lake again, the mirror-like surface continued to grow, now resembling a small boat.

"What are you doing?!" Liu Yuchuan shouted at Gu Jingnian.

"Use it to drain the entire Hongchi, and let's see how you'll refine the people of the world then?"

"Shuzi is arrogant!"

With a furious roar, Liu Yuchuan raised his hands, and the jade veins in the entire underground palace seemed to come alive, with countless lights and shadows intertwining, trying to strangle Gu Jingnian and Yingyao within them.

(End of this chapter)