Yefutidaolu

Chapter 403 Billboard

This seclusion is not for a breakthrough, but for... to fall into slumber.

He completely sealed himself in the iron house at the very core of this iron city, and used a secret technique to forcibly put most of his consciousness into a deep sleep.

He dared not face this suffocating despair and fear with any longer.

Sleep is the only way to prevent the Dao heart from continuing to collapse.

He will wait.

Just as he has done in the past.

Waiting for thousands of kalpas, tens of thousands of kalpas, hundreds of millions of kalpas, trillions of kalpas, and even until the inconceivable and immeasurable number of kalpas.

We will wait until... the day when hell returns and Yama reappears.

Or, until the day when you and this forgotten hell completely vanish into nothingness.

Only in this way……

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Gao Jian sat cross-legged on the cold ground, his gaze still fixed on the Ghost King opposite him, who stood like an ancient rock. He was not discouraged by his previous serious injuries; instead, he focused all his attention on sensing the strange fluctuations emanating from the Ghost King.

He muttered to himself, his voice low but with a hint of realization: "Three hundred and twenty-five tribulations... This life is truly a despair-inducing one."

That's right!

As he was engrossed in "comprehension," the fragments of the past belonging to the Ghost King Gazhali—from a mortal emperor to a celestial being, from devouring his mother planet to falling into the Abyss, and finally becoming this hellish Ghost King—were not transmitted through words or divine thoughts, but flowed naturally into his sea of ​​consciousness like a gentle stream.

Its origin was not that the Ghost King actively revealed it, but rather...

That handprint!

The seemingly calm yet profound lotus mudra formed by the Ghost King Gāzā!

It is not a simple posture or cultivation method; it is more like a vessel, a recorder! It contains a portion of information deliberately left behind by the Ghost King, which continuously emits unique fluctuations in an open and aboveboard manner.

The "profound and unfathomable" fluctuations that Gao Jian perceived were mostly public "messages" emanating from the handprint itself!
He tells others: "Those who come after me, if you can reach this place, you will see my past, know my name, and also know the responsibilities of this place."

“But… sigh,” Gao Jian emerged from that state of receiving information, his face showing not joy but a helpless, bitter smile, and sighed, “Is that all?”

He sat down, not to listen to the story, but to observe the other person's cultivation technique, to decipher its source of power, and to find the path to the so-called 'rank' that is higher than that of an Earth Immortal!

He believed that the strange fluctuations that permeated the surroundings were the Daoist energy that naturally dissipated during the Ghost King's cultivation, a blueprint that he could analyze and imitate.

It turned out that they were almost all "billboards" rather than "core technology".

With his genius and keen insight, he tried his best to immerse himself in and analyze the material, but in the end... he only "downloaded" the introduction and table of contents that the other party had deliberately left on the "cover".

As for the core cultivation method that truly operates within the Ghost King's body, belonging to the "sixth rank" power... its profundity and complexity far exceed the limits that Gao Jian's current realm and comprehension can reach! It's like a wise man from a primitive tribe trying to understand the warp drive principle of an interstellar spaceship, completely unable to begin.

The gap is too large. This is an insurmountable chasm that cannot be bridged by mere intuition.

Takami stood up helplessly and dusted himself off.

He now understood that the ghost king before him was not cultivating, but had fallen into some kind of deep slumber.

From those fragments of information, he could also understand why the other party acted that way.

In the absolute despair of being completely cut off from Hell and with all the upper echelons missing, remaining clear-headed will only allow one's Dao heart to be eroded by endless fear and dread, ultimately leading to self-collapse.

Sleep is the only option. Perhaps, in this demon king's mind, sleeping until returning to hell, or sleeping until his own natural death, is a kind of "ending".

He even has the ability to ensure that even if he "dies" in his sleep, he can maintain some kind of existence, and perhaps he will have the chance to "come back to life" in the future.

“To truly see through him and perceive the fundamental essence of his cultivation method, one must rely on… the rusty knife.” Gao Jian stroked the completely dull, rough, rusty iron rod at his waist, understanding dawning on him.

The rusty knife's "clear reflection" is the only hope for gaining a deeper understanding of the essence.

But the problem is—the rusty knife's sharpness, its last seven inches of cold light, had been completely exhausted in the previous battle against the torrent of information from the Yellow Springs, in order to protect his soul.

Now, it really is just a rather sturdy fire poker.

The knife needs to be sharpened.

However, when it comes to "sharpening" a knife, there's something you can't force it to be.

Its restoration of "sharpness" is related to spirituality and state of mind. It requires a natural process, a natural reappearance of sharpness after following one's true nature.

The more anxious you are, the more you insist on "I must sharpen it immediately," the more you go astray and end up failing to sharpen the knife.

This can't be rushed.

"Ugh!" Gao Jian rubbed his temples in frustration, a surge of anger rising within him, and he couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "Damn it, this is so annoying!"

He was pressed for time; the situation in Cangzhou, Li Jun, Li Zoufang, the Imperial Academy in the capital… countless matters awaited him. Yet, he was trapped in this wretched place, facing a mountain of treasures, but unable to find the entrance!

What's even more frustrating is that you can't rush the repair of this "tool"! If you rush it, it'll break!
Time may flow distorted and prolonged in hell, but his insightful mind cannot truly slow down.

He didn't have much time to waste waiting here, but to break the deadlock, it seemed he had to first complete the "sharpening the knife" process, which couldn't be rushed.

This contradictory predicament caused Gao Jian to frown deeply. Standing there, looking at the sleeping demon king and the rusty iron rod at his waist, he felt somewhat helpless for the first time.

First, you need to sharpen the knife...

But once you think about having to sharpen the knife, you just can't get it sharpened!

This is a vicious cycle.

Faced with the vicious cycle of sharpening the knife, Gao Jian quickly calmed down. Sitting idly before the Ghost King was not a good strategy; the urgent task was to find an external force to break the deadlock.

"In short, staying with the Ghost King is definitely not going to do any good."

He muttered to himself, taking one last look at the green figure struggling against eternal solitude in its slumber, then turned, pushed open the door, and left the silent iron house. Back in the noisy, brutal, yet orderly execution grounds of Iron City, Gao Jian took a deep breath of the air thick with pain and death, his thoughts gradually clearing.

The primary objective is to find the group that entered this place before us—the patriarch of the Shui family of Cangzhou and the elites of the aristocratic families he led! They are carrying a precious treasure brought from the Divine Dynasty and are heading deep into the Yellow Springs with a clear objective, supposedly to capture the three-thousand-year-old cicada.

Although Gao Jian was filled with doubts.

The power levels in this hell are so terrifying that even a sleeping sixth-rank ghost king's power far surpasses that of a mere earth immortal like Yuan Lü.

Compared to this, the power of the Divine Dynasty was like a firefly compared to the bright moon. What kind of "treasure" could such a "weak" dynasty possess that would allow someone to safely infiltrate such a perilous place, let alone have any ulterior motives?

Not sure why.

Gao Jian shook his head, suppressing his doubts for the time being.

In any case, finding them might lead to clues about that "treasure," or even a way to leave this place. This in itself is the greatest "external force," which might break the current stalemate of not being able to find the knife.

"Let's go."

Having made up his mind, Gao Jian acted immediately. His first thought was to find the talkative Yaksha demon from before, who seemed to know quite a lot.

He quickly returned to the area he had been in before, to the familiar iron bed and the familiar scene of being "roasted." However, it was still Zuo An who was bound to the iron bed and tortured, but the executioner had changed to a different yaksha demon with a hideous face and numb eyes.

Got it, time to go home.

That's a brilliant insight. This hell is quite "humane"—the ghosts rest while the humans do not, and the tormented souls suffer eternal torment, but it seems the little devils responsible for carrying out the punishments do have a shift system for rest.

He wasn't intimidated. He stepped forward, cupped his hands in greeting to the new yaksha demon, and politely asked, "Excuse me, sir. Have you seen any other living people come in recently besides me? For example, before me?"

The new Yaksha demon, who was flipping Zuo An over with his huge iron pincers, didn't even look up when he heard this. He waved his empty paw impatiently and said, "Never seen it before! Hurry up and go, don't delay my work! If you want to ask these questions, go ask other demons!"

Gao Jian was met with a cold shoulder, but he wasn't discouraged. Fortunately, he wasn't socially anxious, so he immediately began to wander through the vast execution ground, approaching those kids who seemed a little less busy or whose expressions were a little less numb, and asking them the same questions.

However, the process did not go smoothly.

These little devils are mostly busy with their endless penal duties, and are either indifferent to insightful questions or give them perfunctory answers. Moreover, their concept of time and space seems to differ greatly from that of the living, leading to various conflicting opinions:
Some tilted their heads and thought for a long time before saying, "I feel like I've seen it before... a long, long time ago..."

Gao Jian pressed further, "How long?"

The little devil counted on his fingers: "About... 20,000 years ago?"

Gao Jian: "..."

Some urged him to leave immediately so as not to interfere with official business.

More often than not, they simply ignore it, as if their insightful opinions are transparent.

But there are so many kids in Iron City, there are bound to be some willing to speak up.

Takami patiently asked dozens of different kinds of imps in succession. Finally, one imp, who was using an iron brush to "skin" a sinful soul, stopped what he was doing after hearing Takami's questions and said in a hoarse voice:
"You, a living person, shouldn't be asking us manual laborers these kinds of questions."

It pointed in a direction: "Go this way, deeper into hell, closer to the Yellow Springs River. There, a pair of guardian deities take turns on duty, responsible for monitoring the order of good and evil in our little near-border hell, rewarding the good and punishing the evil. All entries and exits, and any abnormal fluctuations, should theoretically be on file with them. Go ask them, and you'll surely find out if any other living beings have recently broken in."

A wandering god day and night? An inspector?

Gao Jian was overjoyed and quickly cupped his hands in thanks: "Thank you for your guidance, brother!"

Having obtained the crucial information, Gao Jian didn't delay any longer and immediately set off in the direction the little devil had pointed.

He had assumed that since they were both in hell, even if there was a distance, he should be able to get there quickly on foot.

However, he greatly underestimated the vastness of this "little near-border hell".

This journey took a full nine days!
In hell, there is no alternation of day and night, only an eternally unchanging crimson sky, blurring the sense of time. But Gao Jian, relying on his powerful biological clock and perception of the flow of qi and blood, clearly judged that nine days and nine nights had passed!

The route was still filled with endless execution grounds and wailing, a monotonous and suffocating sight.

The journey was so long that he had to stop several times along the way to confirm the direction with the little devils he encountered, for fear that he had gone the wrong way.

The answers I received were all: "That's right, in this direction, but it's still a long way off!"

"Damn it." Gao Jian couldn't help but curse under his breath. The joy he had felt from obtaining the clue had long been worn away by the long journey, replaced by a sense of helplessness and anxiety.

This hell is just too big!

The "smallest of the small" near-border hell, as described by a mere ghost soldier, is actually so enormous! How incredibly vast must the true eight hot hells, or even the entire complete hell system, be?
Nine days of non-stop travel had taken its toll, even on someone as robust as Gao Jian. And the so-called "Yellow Springs River" and the "day and night wandering gods" remained a distant dream.

He could only continue forward, advancing towards an unknown goal in this seemingly endless red desert and bloody execution ground.

Seventeen days in total.

Gao Jian himself couldn't remember how many gruesome execution grounds he had traversed, how many unimaginable tortures he had witnessed, or how many waves of hideous demons he had questioned. His once handsome face now bore the obvious marks of hardship and weariness.

The ordinary food they carried with them, which was originally enough to last for several months, had long been used up.

Fortunately, he also had a large quantity of spiritual herbs and pills stored in his storage pouch for cultivation and physical training. These pills were rich in energy, and one pill could provide the necessary essence for several days. However, they tasted dry and long-term use would cause his qi and blood to become agitated.

But during those seventeen days, Gao Jian didn't care about anything else and relied entirely on drugs to maintain his high-speed journey.

Finally, at some point on the seventeenth day, the surrounding environment began to undergo subtle changes.

The omnipresent resentment in the air, formed from the agonizing wails of sinful souls, seemed to have faded somewhat.

He looked up at the reddish-brown "sky." High above, in the distance, he could see thick, inky yellow clouds slowly flowing and churning, like a murky, yellowish river stretching across the horizon!
The aura emanating from the yellow clouds was all too familiar to Gao Jian—it was none other than Huang Quan.

“The Yellow Springs are in the heavens…” Gao Jian muttered to himself, a look of absurdity yet understanding on his face. “It really is true, the Yellow River’s waters come from the heavens…”

The poem is so fitting in this context, yet so chilling.

He was absolutely certain that this was the place beneath the Yellow Springs.

(End of this chapter)