The ancient return was exposed by his sister's live stream.

Chen Siyao listened and took notes, occasionally pointing out the general meaning of the text.

The final information that was sorted out is roughly as follows...

After the war, the Jie Sect and the Chan Sect did indeed cease hostilities, but not because an agreement was reached.

It wasn't about who persuaded whom. The mural doesn't record any negotiation process or drafted terms. There's only one sentence...

"Since this is the way, why should we contend?"

Eight characters.

Professor Li pondered this for a long time but couldn't figure out its exact meaning. "What kind of path is this?" he asked three times, but no one could answer.

But the result is undeniable... the struggle is over. It wasn't that one side won, nor that one side conceded. It was that both sides stopped fighting simultaneously.

The next account is about migration.

"'The Shangyuan Calendar is 53,000 years old. All cultivators of the Nine Provinces have left this land.'"

"Has everyone left?" Chen Siyao asked.

"Everyone," Professor Li said. "It says 'everyone' here. Not a single one left."

"They went to the Thirty-Three Heavens?"

Professor Li looked at it for a long time. "No, that's not right. It says later—'The Thirty-Three Heavens were also abandoned. They eventually went to—'"

He stopped.

"Where to?"

"The words after that—" Professor Li changed the angle of the magnifying glass, frowned, and looked at it for a while. "They're worn down. There are signs of weathering on the stone surface, and the last few words are hard to read."

"Can't you tell at all?"

"I can see a radical," Professor Zhao squeezed in, "It looks like the character '界' (jiè)."

"X World".

"It could also be the one below 'sky'."

"I can't be sure." The three professors discussed for a few minutes and finally gave up.

But the core information is clear... the ancient civilization of cultivating immortality has not perished.

They weren't destroyed by the war. They left voluntarily. They collectively left Kyushu, not the Thirty-Three Heavens, and went to somewhere much farther away.

Where did they go? I don't know.

Chen Siyao stood in front of the mural, digesting the information for a while.

Behind him, Professor Li had already begun instructing his graduate students to conduct systematic rubbings. "Make high-definition records of the entire wall surface! Layers! Sections! Numbers! Not a single character can be missed!"

The graduate students got busy, and the hum of the equipment filled the main hall.

Chen Siyao took out her phone and glanced at the live stream.

Online users: 820 million.

The world was in an uproar. The comments weren't just one line at a time; they were flooding the entire screen.

"They're gone! The ancient civilization of cultivation is gone!"

"Not extinction! It's migration!"

"People left Earth ten thousand years ago!"

"Humans achieved interstellar migration in ancient times!"

"They said they left when the spiritual energy was cut off—now that the mystical energy has been restored, will they come back?"

"Wait, where did they go? To the Thirty-Three Heavens or even further?"

"The murals say it wasn't the Thirty-Three Heavens...they went to a much farther place!"

On major social media platforms, related topics have surged to the top of the global trending searches.

"#AncientCivilizationMigration#"

"#Thirty-Three Heavens#"

"#The Mystery of the Extinction of Spiritual Energy#"

"#Interstellar Migration in Ten Thousand Years#"

Chen Siyao put her phone away and said to the photo crystal, "That's all for today's live stream. Further analysis will be released by the Special Affairs Bureau and the research team."

She turned off the photo crystal.

Qin Xiaoyu walked over. "Auntie, the professors will be here for a long time."

"Okay, let them continue. Let's go back first." Chen Siyao looked around. "Where's Ye Chendong?"

"I helped Professor Zhao identify the diagrams on the north wall. He said he wanted to stay."

"Okay," Chen Siyao nodded. "What about you?"

"I'll stay a while longer. There's still some content on the east wall that I want to copy down."

"I'll head back now. You guys come back later."

Chen Siyao walked out of the main hall. The air in the square was clean, and the sea breeze blew in from afar, carrying a salty and damp scent.

She took out her phone and sent a message to Yang Wanqing.

[Chen Siyao: Where are you? I'm about to go back.]

[Yang Wanqing: It's on the seventeenth island! Yao, did you know there's a hot spring on this island? It's a sacred spring!! Soaking in it feels so good!]

[Yang Wanqing: Ying Wenjie and Wu Tian found a training ground on the nearby island, and the two of them were having a great time fighting.]

[Chen Siyao: I'm going back to Dingdao Island first. You guys can come back on your own when you're done.]

Yang Wanqing: Okay! See you tonight!

Chen Siyao took a boat back to Dinghai Island.

Enter the hotel, take the elevator, turn the corner at the end of the corridor, and you'll find the suite door.

Swipe your card. Go inside.

The living room was empty. The door to my brother's room was ajar... and no one was inside.

Chen Siyao paused for a moment, then took a few steps toward the balcony.

Push open the French windows.

The sea breeze blew in, and sure enough, the Pearl of Return to Nothingness appeared.

On the balcony, the completely black Returning Void Pearl floated silently in mid-air. It rotated on its own without wind, its surface flowing with a deep, dark light.

My brother is cultivating inside.

Chen Siyao stared at the round bead for a while. The image of the human figure in the mural was still swirling in her mind... tall and graceful amidst the heavenly tribulation.

She closed the balcony door, turned around and went back to her room to wash up.

There are so many questions I want to ask.

But there's no rush.

After washing up, Chen Siyao pushed open the door to the living room and found Yang Wanqing lying on the sofa eating potato chips and watching TV.

Yang Wanqing saw them return, rolled over, and a pile of potato chip crumbs fell out. "Yaoyao! Did you figure it out?"

"I've roughly figured it out." Chen Siyao changed her shoes and walked into the living room.

"The Thirty-Three Heavens? A great battle? The one undergoing tribulation?" Yang Wanqing asked in rapid succession.

"Take your time," Chen Siyao said, sitting down on the sofa and briefly recounting her findings from the day.

Yang Wanqing's eyes widened as she listened. "They moved away ten thousand years ago? They went to outer space? Isn't that—a cultivation-style interstellar migration?"

Chen Siyao nodded.

Yang Wanqing clicked her tongue, then, remembering something, sprang up from the sofa. "Oh right, where's Master? I didn't see him when I got back. Did Master go shopping?"

She turned to look at Chen Siyao.

Chen Siyao stood up and took a few steps toward the balcony.

The balcony door was ajar, and the sea breeze was blowing in through the crack.

She opened the door.

really.

The Returning Void Pearl floated in the center of the balcony, its dark surface shimmering with dim light patterns as it quietly rotated.

Yang Wanqing followed and took a look, then pursed her lips.

"Alright. Master is still the same master. A training machine."

Chen Siyao looked at the Guixu Pearl without saying a word.

The next three days.

Chen Siyao takes a boat to Penglai Island every morning at eight o'clock. The research work in the main hall has entered a systematic stage.

The three professors, along with their respective teams, divided the four walls into twenty-six sections, and then made rubbings, punctuated, translated, and annotated each section.