I just became the Pirate King, and you're telling me I also time-traveled at the same time.

The corpse's hands were folded on its knees, left hand on top, right hand on the bottom, palms facing upwards.

On the index finger of his left hand was a ring made of iron. The ring was plain and undecorated, just a simple iron band. However, the surface of the band had a very faint luster, which was formed after being immersed in spiritual energy for a long time.

There was a faint light source at the dantian location on the corpse—three inches below the lower abdomen.

Light shone through his withered skin and gray robe, revealing a warm orange-red hue, like a nearly extinguished ember buried under ashes, its surface no longer visible, but its heat still lingering, still burning quietly.

That was a golden elixir.

It wasn't the kind of demon core or true essence pill condensed by cultivators that Chu Yang had seen in the world of cultivation, but something else entirely.

Older, purer, more like a core formed after life force itself has been compressed to its extreme.

The golden core was still circulating—extremely slowly. With each rotation, extremely subtle spiritual energy seeped out from the core, spreading along the dantian to the whole body, and then dissipating from the whole body.

This process had been going on for far too long, so long that a thin layer of crystals had formed on the ground around the corpse, soaked in spiritual energy and shimmering under the light of the pearl.

Chu Yang stood in front of the corpse, watching the golden elixir circulate.

He got it.

The waterfalls, peach orchards, pools, and monkeys of Huaguo Mountain—all of this originates here.

This person passed away at the foot of this mountain countless years ago. His golden core did not dissipate with the death of his physical body, but continued to operate in an almost eternal way, continuing to release spiritual energy.

The spiritual energy seeped into the groundwater, flowing out through the cracks in the mountain, into the pools, into the waterfalls, into the roots of the peach grove, into every peach, and into the body of every monkey that drank the water.

This is why there are so many and so big peaches on Flower Fruit Mountain. This is why the monkeys here are smarter and more intelligent than the monkeys in other mountains. This is why a group of monkeys without demonic powers can survive in a mountain with black bears.

They didn't survive on their own.

It is this mountain that nourishes them.

Chu Yang slowly bent his knees and sat down in front of the deceased cultivator, cross-legged, facing him.

He didn't know who this cultivator was, why he was passing away here, or which era he came from.

But the moment he sat down, he sensed something—not spirituality, not power, but a very ancient, simple kindness.

Before he died, this person left his golden elixir inside his body, allowing it to continue circulating and releasing its essence.

It's not for reincarnation, not for preserving one's consciousness, but simply for release.

Like someone throwing the last bundle of firewood into a dying stove, before closing their eyes, they want the fire to burn a little longer, to warm a few more people gathered around it.

Chu Yang closed his eyes.

The spiritual energy flows within the grotto.

It's not static; it has a direction—starting from the cultivator's golden core, passing through his meridians, emanating from every pore, gathering in the cave, and then guided by the four talismans on the four walls, splitting into countless thin streams, seeping upwards along the cracks in the mountain, and finally gushing out from every crack in the ground, flowing into waterfalls, pools, and peach groves.

He opened his eyes, stood up, and walked around the walls of the cave.

Besides those few pearls, there were other things on the wall.

Near the entrance to the cave, there are words carved on the wall.

The characters were carved directly into the stone with the fingers, not with a knife—the carver's fingers were as hard as iron, leaving deep marks on the stone.

It's short, only two lines.

First line: My lifespan ends on this mountain, but my elixir is not yet exhausted.

Leave the cinnabar here, nourish this landscape, and nurture this life.

Second line: If anyone later obtains this elixir, I hope they will treat the things of this mountain well.

There was no signature or date.

After reading these two lines, Chu Yang turned around and glanced at the cultivator who had passed away peacefully.

Before he died, this man used his last bit of strength to carve these four sentences on the wall, using the fewest words to explain the most important thing: you can take this pill, but after you take it, you must treat this mountain well.

He silently repeated those two lines three times, then walked to the cave entrance and shouted upwards, "Found it!"

From inside the cave came Sun Wukong's urgent voice: "What is it?! Alive or dead?!"

"Dead," Chu Yang said, "a cultivator who passed away peacefully."

The golden core is still spinning.

The cave was quiet for a moment.

Then Sun Wukong's voice came again, this time without urgency, only with a serious, almost solemn tone.

"I'm getting down."

"You can't get in—"

Before the words were finished, the sound of stones cracking came from inside the cave.

Chu Yang took a step back and saw that the walls of the cave were cracking open to both sides—not naturally, but rather as if a force was forcibly pushing the stone walls apart from the other end of the cave.

Gravel fell down with a clatter, dust flew up, and the tunnel was expanding at a visible speed, from a narrow passage that could only accommodate one person to a large passage that could accommodate two people walking side by side.

When Sun Wukong came down from the cave, he held the golden cudgel horizontally in his hand, and the cudgel was still faintly glowing.

His body was covered in stone dust, and his hair was studded with stone fragments, but he didn't take any pictures. Instead, he walked directly to the deceased monk and stopped.

He stared at it for a long time.

The light from the pearl shone on his face, making his expression complex.

His brows were furrowed, his lips were pursed, and his eyes were fixed on the shriveled corpse, as if he were trying to identify something.

After a long time, he reached out and gently touched the white hair on the monk's shoulder with one finger.

His white hair turned to powder under his fingertips.

It wasn't the kind of decay that would rot, but rather something that had maintained its form for thousands of years due to the long-term nourishment of spiritual energy. Suddenly, it was touched by an external force, lost its support, and silently collapsed into a small clump of silvery-white ash.

Ash fell from his fingertips, landing on the ground and mingling with the crystal fragments on the ground.

Sun Wukong withdrew his hand, looked at the silvery-white powder remaining on his fingertips, and remained silent for a long time.

"I don't know him," he said, his voice much lower than usual. "I've lived on Flower Fruit Mountain for so many years, and I never knew there was someone living at the foot of this mountain."

"He arrived much earlier than you," Chu Yang said.

Sun Wukong nodded.

He walked around the monk once, and when he stopped, he saw the two lines of words on the wall.

He read it once, then read it again, and then slammed the golden cudgel into the ground.

"He left behind Dan."

"I kept it."

"If we take the pill, this mountain will be gone," Sun Wukong said.

He wasn't asking a question; he was stating a fact.

Once the Golden Core is taken away, the spiritual energy will be cut off, and the waterfalls, peach groves, and monkeys of Flower Fruit Mountain—things that have been nurtured by the spiritual energy for thousands of years—will begin to decay within a few months.

The peaches will shrink, the waterfall will become thinner, and the monkeys will gradually lose their intelligence and turn back into ordinary wild monkeys.

Chu Yang remained silent.

Sun Wukong remained silent.

He glanced at the cultivator's corpse, then at the small patch of sunlight filtering through the cave entrance.

The sunlight was very bright, the kind of blinding white of an afternoon, shining on the rubble at the edge of the cave entrance, making the rubble scorch.

"Let's go back first." Sun Wukong put away his golden cudgel. "We need to think about this."

That night, the monkeys found Chu Yang and Sun Wukong very strange.

The campfire was lit as usual, and the monkeys frolicked around it as usual.

The stone practiced all day under the waterfall and was so tired that it almost had no strength left to walk, but it still insisted on sitting by the campfire and sharpening its claws with a piece of gravel.

This is a habit it learned from Chu Yang—weapons need to be sharpened regularly, and claws are also weapons.

The wounds on its paws from yesterday's fight with the bear have scabbed over, and it no longer hurts when it sharpens its claws, only feels a little itchy.

The one-eyed old monkey brought over another roasted rabbit leg—this time it was roasted better than last time, the outside wasn't burnt and the inside wasn't raw, although it was still very dry, chewing it felt like chewing wood.

It presented the rabbit leg to Chu Yang, its single eye shining with anticipation.

Chu Yang took the rabbit leg, took a bite, chewed it, and swallowed it.

Then he did something he had never done before—he took a peach out of his sleeve and handed it to the one-eyed old monkey.

I picked the peach in the peach orchard this afternoon. It was very ripe, with a small brown bruise on the skin, but the flesh was fine.

The one-eyed old monkey took the peach and was stunned.

It looked at the peach, then at Chu Yang, and then carefully placed the peach on the ground beside it without eating it.

It probably felt that this peach was too precious and wanted to save it for tomorrow.

Chu Yang saw it, but didn't say anything.

Sun Wukong sat in his usual spot—the largest rock by the pool.

Today, instead of putting his feet in the water, he sat cross-legged on a rock, resting his chin on his hand, staring blankly at the campfire.

The little monkey climbed onto his shoulder and used its paws to ruffle his hair, trying to pick out the stone dust inside.

The stone powder was grayish-white under the moonlight. The little monkey picked out a grain, brought it close to its eyes to look at it, then put it in its mouth to taste it, and immediately spat it out, its little face scrunched up.

"Silly monkey." Sun Wukong reached out and scooped the little monkey off his shoulder, putting it in his arms. "Stones aren't for eating."

Chu Yang walked over and sat down next to him.

The two sat side by side on a rock, with a leaping campfire and a troop of monkeys in front of them.

"Have you thought it through?" Chu Yang asked.

"No," Sun Wukong said. "I can't figure it out."

If I, Old Sun, needed this golden elixir myself, I would take it.

But I don't need it.

I have no use for a cultivator's golden core.

You don't need to either—your own path is different from others, and taking other people's pills won't do you any good.

That leaves only the monkeys.

"The monkeys need this mountain."

"Yes, we need it." Sun Wukong nodded. "We absolutely need it."

They have only just begun to learn cultivation, and their foundation relies entirely on the spiritual energy of the mountains.

"Once the spiritual energy is cut off, the demon bone in the stone will have grown in vain, and the muscles and bones that the other monkeys have cultivated will slowly regress." He paused, "But on the other hand, the golden core has been buried at the bottom of the mountain for thousands of years, and the spiritual energy will eventually be exhausted."

The four talismans are almost worn down. Once the talismans dissipate, the speed at which spiritual energy seeps out will accelerate, and it won't be long before the time comes.

"It may take several decades, or even a hundred years, for the elixir to wither."

Chu Yang also thought of this.

The four talismans they saw at the bottom of the pool this afternoon were worn out. Once the restriction collapsed, the spiritual energy of the Golden Core would be lost at an accelerated rate. At that time, Flower Fruit Mountain would experience a brief period of spiritual energy explosion, and then quickly dry up.

This isn't a question of whether to take it or not; it's a matter of time.

"Is there any way to prolong Dan's life?" Sun Wukong asked.

Chu Yang thought for a moment.

"Pour the surrounding spiritual energy into the elixir."

However, the spiritual energy near Flower Fruit Mountain is not abundant to begin with; relying on the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to nurture the elixir is like trying to fill a well with a cup of water.

"What if someone deliberately pumps air into it?"

Chu Yang turned to look at Sun Wukong.

Sun Wukong didn't look at Chu Yang, but instead looked at the stone beside the campfire where he was sharpening his claws.

Stone moved with great focus, grinding away, its claws scraping tiny sparks from the gravel, which flickered in the night like a few lost fireflies.

"What I mean is," Sun Wukong said, "that instead of waiting for the elixir to run dry, we should let the monkeys with demon bones take turns going down to the cave to meditate and practice breathing exercises."

The golden core radiates spiritual energy outwards, while they infuse it with demonic power.

With this back and forth, the rate at which the Golden Elixir is consumed will be much slower.

The monkeys cultivated near the Golden Elixir, and the results were much better than if they had cultivated on the ground.

"Their cultivation level can't withstand it," Chu Yang said. "The spiritual energy of the Golden Core is too strong; even the meridians of ordinary cultivators can't handle it, let alone monkeys that have only recently started practicing breathing exercises."

"Let's take it one step at a time." Sun Wukong gestured with his chin toward the stone. "Let the stone try first."

Its root structure is the best, and it combines the cultivation of tendons and bones with breathing techniques.

Let it stay down there for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn each time, gradually increasing the time until its meridians have adapted, then you can take the other four down with you.

Chu Yang did not answer immediately.

He went through the scene he had seen in the cave that afternoon in his mind—the monk who had passed away in meditation, the golden core that was still spinning, and the four sentences on the wall.

If anyone later obtains this elixir, it is hoped that they will treat the things of this mountain well.

If the monkeys are allowed to cultivate next to the Golden Core, it will both slow down the consumption of the Golden Core and accelerate the monkeys' cultivation. This is probably the meaning of "treating the things of this mountain well".

"You can give it a try," he said.

Sun Wukong grunted in agreement, then lifted the little monkey in his arms and held it above his head.

The little monkey waved its arms and legs wildly in the air, making dissatisfied "squeak" sounds.

"Did you hear that?" Sun Wukong said to the little monkey, his tone exactly the same as when he went off-topic while teaching breathing techniques. "There's an old man at the bottom of the mountain who has been sleeping for thousands of years and has been sending spiritual energy to you monkeys."

Now that you've made something of yourself, you should repay them.

The little monkey, of course, couldn't understand. It just felt that the position was not very comfortable, so it wrapped its tail around Sun Wukong's wrist, then swung forward, swinging its body like a swing onto the back of Sun Wukong's neck, grabbing the hair at the back of his head, sitting steadily on his shoulders, and pulling his two ears with both hands.

Sun Wukong hissed and scooped it up, placing it on a rock.