Yefutidaolu

Chapter 424 Stars and Existence

The day and night spirits hovered in the air, silently watching Gao Jian standing below, sword in hand. Gao Jian's direct and forceful response seemed to have taken them somewhat by surprise. This young man, who had once barely escaped from their clutches, now displayed a confidence and sharpness completely different from his former self.

The silence lasted for several breaths before the Sun God's voice, like the scraping of metal, rang out again: "The word 'profit' is inherent in all things under heaven; it is simply the way things are, and the way things are based on profit." His words echoed at the bottom of the empty canyon. "All things strive for profit; if we take this as our guide, what is wrong with that?"

Upon hearing this, Gao simply shook his head, his tone so flat that it revealed neither joy nor anger: "I don't care where you went wrong, I just don't like the look of you, so there's nothing to talk about?"

The Night Wanderer let out a low sigh: "Whether we talk about it or not, there is no difference in essence. If we add to it to the excess, it will overflow."

He looked at Gao Jian and said, “Your resources are too abundant, and your path seems smooth so far. Therefore, you still have plenty of room to worry about things beyond profit. If you were struggling to survive every day, if living itself were a luxury, you would understand what we are doing.”

Gao Jian did not answer, but simply gripped his knife.

Having said that, the day and night wandering spirits spoke in unison, their voices overlapping and carrying a peculiar rhythm: "Further words are useless. Since you insist on seeing the person we have contacted, then so be it. Please."

"So easy to talk to?" Gao Jian frowned slightly.

"You bear the aura of the Ghost King, and it may be fate that brought you here." The voice of the Day Wanderer was devoid of emotion. "We will help you pass through this rift and contact the people behind the Yangshi Divine Dynasty. You... can communicate on your own."

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," Gao Jian said bluntly, trying to discern some clues from their blurred faces.

However, the day and night wandering gods no longer responded, but simply hovered there quietly, like two lifeless sculptures, their light steadily radiating in the deep darkness.

Gao Jian stood in confrontation with them for a moment, his mind racing. They were clearly unwilling to reveal any more, and continuing the stalemate was pointless. Since they had opened the passage themselves, whether it was a trap or an opportunity, he would have to experience it to find out.

He took a deep breath, suppressed all his calculations, and waved his hand.

"Alright, lead the way."

Having received permission, the Day and Night Wanderer said no more. His figure floated, maintaining a safe distance of about a mile from Gao Jian, and began to fly deeper into the canyon. Gao Jian, on the other hand, ran on the ground, his figure as fast as lightning, keeping up closely.

At first, running across this "valley plain" didn't evoke any particular feeling other than desolation. But as time went on, Gao Jian keenly noticed that although the view was as open as a plain, the terrain beneath his feet was indeed continuously sloping downwards.

He wasn't running on level ground, but rather along an enormous slope, constantly descending deeper into the earth's core... or rather, to the bottom of hell.

It was a long journey. For two whole days, Gao Jian followed the two guiding lights ahead, tirelessly running. The cliffs on both sides, which were originally out of reach, appeared to grow taller and closer, as if they were about to close in.

The dim, yellowish light that originally filled the hellish space gradually weakened and receded here, as if it were being swallowed up by the surrounding darkness.

By the third day, the surroundings were completely plunged into absolute darkness, where one could not see their own hand in front of their face.

The light here was extremely dim, with only two soft yet firm lights, one white and one black, emanating from the Day and Night Wanderer ahead, like the only fireflies in the dark night, guiding the way.

After a tedious journey through pure darkness, the day and night wanderers finally stopped.

Gao Jian steadied himself and looked intently.

They had reached the very depths of the canyon.

Here, the scenery defies common sense.

Ahead, against the backdrop of endless darkness, appeared a... rift.

This sounds like nonsense, but it really is a fissure, a canyon within a canyon, a deeper and more bizarre wound on top of a huge scar.

It wasn't a continuous fissure in the earth, but rather a "hole" that abruptly appeared on the ground, about ten meters square, with irregular edges, as if it had been forcibly carved through by some force. And looking down from this hole—what you saw wasn't the deeper layers of hellish rock, but... a vast and boundless starry sky!

Against a deep, dark backdrop, countless stars twinkle and shimmer, nebulae resemble gauze, and the Milky Way stretches like a ribbon.

The scene was as if it had pierced through the crust and mantle of the "planet" of Hell, revealing the other side of the cosmic vacuum. The starlight was cold and distant, incongruous with the deathly atmosphere of Hell, yet they merged together in a strange way, forming a breathtaking spectacle.

Is this the "gap" leading to the mortal world? Gao Jian stared at the ten-meter square starry sky, his heart filled with turbulent emotions.

Is the so-called "connection" of the day and night wandering gods meant to go through this place?

Gao Jian stared at the strange, ten-meter-square hole beneath his feet, through which the vast starry sky shone, his brow furrowed. "Do we have to go through here?" he asked directly. This scene defied common sense, and his intuition told him that this was no place for good.

"No need." The voices of the Day and Night Wanderers sounded simultaneously. "Going through there will lead to death. What lies inside is... the void, the true void, a place of complete severance, where all laws cease to exist, a place of utter nothingness even more complete than this hell."

“Void?” Gao Jian pointed to the clearly visible, dazzling stars below the hole. “Are there stars in the void?” This scene was the complete opposite of the description of “nothingness.”

The voice of the Day Wanderer carried a mixture of fear and reverence: "How can mortals fully comprehend the mysteries of the stars? All things in this world, all that survives, are bathed in the radiance of the stars. Our existence depends entirely on the stars for sustaining us. If not for this, we would have long since turned into dreamlike ashes and vanished into nothingness."

Gao Jian's mind raced, and he immediately grasped the key point in the other party's words, connecting it to the current predicament: "So, the Yang World Divine Dynasty was abandoned by the gods, and Hell was also cut off from the Ten Kings of Hell, but neither of them has completely collapsed, precisely because the stars are still shining?"

The day and night wandering spirits fell silent, a silence that seemed exceptionally long and heavy in the absolute darkness. After a long while, they slowly spoke, their voices tinged with uncertainty: "We... don't know. This matter is too secretive, involving the root of things. But..." They changed the subject, asking in return, "In the mortal realm today, do the sun and moon still rise and set as usual?" "Of course there are sun and moon." Gao Jian didn't understand their meaning; this was a basic fact.

"Since the sun and moon still exist, it means... the principles of Heaven still exist." The tone of the Day and Night Wanderer seemed to have breathed a sigh of relief, yet it carried an even deeper sense of awe.

"Does justice still exist?" Gao Jian increasingly felt that this conversation pointed to some astonishing truth.

Having said this, the Day and Night Wanderers looked at each other, seemingly having made up their minds. They said in unison, "Since that's the case, we might as well tell you everything. Perhaps the being behind you truly has the power to save us from this boundless sea of ​​suffering."

"These secrets were obtained by us when we were fortunate enough to hear Yama preach in the past. Among all the heavens and the myriad realms, those who have heard these secrets can be counted on one hand. If the situation had not reached such a point, we would never have revealed a single word of them."

"Since you've already decided to speak, why bother with unnecessary details?" Gao Jian said impatiently.

She's so fussy; if she has something to say, she should just say it.

The Day and Night Wanderer was not angered by his impatience. Instead, he continued in an unusually solemn and synchronized tone: "This is not superfluous talk, but a necessary expression of reverence. You do not understand, you do not comprehend, what a magnificent and awe-inspiring undertaking this is! What an unparalleled honor it is to hear Yama recount such mysteries with your own ears!"

Gao Jian sighed softly, but his expression became truly serious.

He recalled how he had glimpsed the realm of desire with his rusty knife, and sensed the vastness of the world's birth and death, knowing that the universe contained grand rules far beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

Given the attitude of the "day and night wandering god," it seems we're about to hear some big news.

Seeing that Gao Jian had abandoned his previous casualness, the Day and Night Wanderers began to speak formally, their voices echoing in the darkness:
"The number of all things and beings is like the sands of the Ganges, immeasurable. And for all things to exist, there must be an absolute 'foundation'. Just as all things follow cause and effect, for every effect there must be a cause. Your presence here today is the 'effect,' but behind it must be the 'cause' of your coming here, and this 'cause' itself must be the 'effect' of other things. The cause must be the effect of the previous cause, and the effect must be the cause of the subsequent effect, and so on, the chain of cause and effect continues endlessly, almost infinite."

"So, here's the question, my sir." Their voices carried an interrogative tone, "Do you know what the ultimate end of this cycle of cause and effect is?"

Gao Jian's mind raced, and combining the previous conversation, he understood: "Could it be the 'foundation' you were talking about?"

Of course, this kind of infinite backtracking logically requires a starting point, a "cause" that is no longer determined by other reasons.

Those things are just too mysterious, and he usually doesn't bother to think about them.

“Exactly!” The voice of the Day and Night Wanderer carried the excitement of revealing a truth. “This is what is called the ‘foundation’! It can be, and must be, the cause of everything else, but it itself cannot be the cause of anything else! It is the absolute starting point of the causal chain, the cornerstone that supports the entire magnificent edifice!”

"Imagine, what a magnificent, what an incredible existence this is! All things, endless causes and effects, are built upon it!" Their tone suddenly turned low and fearful. "But conversely, the existence of all things also depends entirely on its stability. Once this 'foundation' grows weary, or shows the slightest disturbance... then the infinite things attached to it will instantly vanish like illusions, having lost their fundamental reason for existence! If the foundation moves, all things will collapse, and all existence along the chain of cause and effect will be utterly wiped out, returning to complete nothingness!"

Takashi's brows furrowed; the scene he described was indeed chilling.

The Day and Night Wanderer didn't give him much time to process it, and continued, "And so, the stars came into being."

"Stars are an alternative 'reason' for things that may have lost or have already lost their 'foundation' for sustaining them, an anchor of refuge! The starry sky, the four elements, the five planets, the nine luminaries, the twelve constellations, the twenty-eight mansions... these ancient stars, their brilliance, provides a path for all things to survive in the face of ultimate nothingness. When the 'foundation' is shaken and all things are about to turn to ashes, one can choose to entrust the 'reason' for one's existence to a certain star!"

"With its own immense power, it shoulders the heavy responsibility of ensuring the survival of all things! This is the essence of the stars!"

Their voices reached a climax, pointing downwards at the crack through which the starry sky shone:
"And this rift before you is no ordinary spatial rift. It is... a rift that traverses the stars! Once you pass through this cave, you will lose the protection of the stars! Therefore, you will vanish! Vanish into nothingness more utterly meaningless than death!"

All the information converged here, and the wandering god day and night revealed a terrible truth.

"That passage, that rift connecting the mortal world, its path must traverse this entire starry sky!" Their voices were filled with certainty. "We must go through here. All our connections with the mortal world depend on this rift."

"In other words, you hope that I... or rather, the being behind me," Gao Jian's gaze swept seemingly casually over the rusty knife in his hand, "can find some kind of flaw in this rift, a safer and more effective way to use it, so as to... 'rescue' you, or at least part of this hellish existence, from this predicament?"

The silence of the day-and-night wandering gods is tantamount to admission.

After a moment, they said, "It's just a slim hope. But for this glimmer of hope, we are willing to share the existence of this rift with you. If you wish to use it to contact the Yangshi Divine Dynasty, please do so."

"Ah, I understand." Gao Jian nodded, no longer delving into the other party's scheme. Since their goals were aligned, they could at least cooperate for the time being. He asked directly, "Then let's leave it at that. How do I contact the other side?"

The answer from the day-and-night wandering spirit was surprisingly simple: "Just write a letter. Write a letter, tie it with a rope, and hand it over."

"Is it really that simple?" Gao Jian raised an eyebrow. This method sounded almost childish, completely at odds with the description of the perilous journey through the star rift.

"This is no simple matter..." the day and night wandering gods said in unison.

"After passing through the starry sky, you will have to maintain the existence of the rope and the letter on your own. You will be the 'cause' of the letter, and your existence will be diluted as a result... You share your 'existence' with the rope. The information transmitted cannot be too much, and the material transmitted must be simple, because the more special something is, the more it needs to have enough existence."

"Once your own existence is no longer sufficient, you will simply vanish into thin air."

"After completing the transmission, you need to establish causal connections with other things as soon as possible to solidify your existence, otherwise you will gradually disappear. At that time, although you will still exist, others will no longer be able to see you."

"That's all the things you need to be aware of."

(End of this chapter)