Pang Bo had never left Earth!

When he learned this, Ye Fan stood frozen like a figure carved from clay, his entire being turned to stone, staring blankly into the sky.

Through all those years — who had shared the same joys and hardships with him? Who had fought shoulder to shoulder alongside him? Who had roamed across the heavens with him? Who had faced death alongside him?

Ye Fan felt a chill sweep through his entire body. A friend bound to him by total loyalty and sincerity — how could any of it have been false? If it had been, who in this world was left to trust?

His heart felt empty and hollow. If Pang Bo had never left Earth, had never crossed the stars and the void alongside him, then what a terrifying and staggering thing that would be.

If it were truly so, then who had been the person who boarded the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin with him? That person had been there from the very beginning, back on Mount Tai — had they set out from this very world?

“There was one extra person…” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

He still remembered that moment clearly: when they had counted heads, there had been one extra person inside the Ancient Bronze Coffin. At the time it had frightened everyone. And yet he had been the first to accept that it was Pang Bo — because he had trusted Pang Bo, trusted what he felt in that moment, and had detected no deception.

“All these years… who was he really? What was the benefit in keeping up the act?”

Ye Fan felt a chill deep in his bones. He found it impossible to accept. A brother he had faced death with — how could that person have been a false existence, something gone wrong?

“I don’t believe it. He held no ill will toward me. And he knew everything about me — how could someone who wasn’t his true self understand me so thoroughly?”

In an instant, Ye Fan shook free of his grief. Every muscle in his body tensed. He clenched his fists. Even though he had returned to Earth, he could not relax. He needed to pierce through this fog of mystery.

He tore himself free from the shadow of his parents’ deaths. His eyes turned toward the horizon, as though he stood once again in the northern stellar region. His heart rose into a state of battle-readiness!

Ye Fan headed south, set on uncovering the truth — to see what was real and what was false. From the depths of his heart, he did not want to believe that another Pang Bo existed on Earth. If that were so, there would be no one left in this world to trust.

Pang Bo’s family address had long since changed — otherwise, why would he have needed Xu Qiong’s help to locate it? He would have gone himself long ago. Twenty-some years had changed much, and they had moved away from their original city.

Ye Fan arrived in City N. Following the information he had recently obtained, he found his destination. He stood on the rooftop of a tall building, quietly sensing. He projected his powerful divine sense downward into the building and immediately felt a jolt — he had found Pang Bo’s parents.

His father was a powerfully built man. Though he was approaching eighty now and showed his age in every feature, one could still see how formidable he must have been in his youth. Pang Bo had inherited that build — both of them were a head or two taller than ordinary men, thick-limbed and broad-shouldered.

His mother’s hair was white as snow, her health not very strong. Her face looked pale and depleted, carrying a trace of persistent gloom.

Of Pang Bo himself, there was no sign. The apartment was of decent size, yet it was clear that another couple also lived there, plus what appeared to be one younger person.

“Those must be Pang Bo’s elder brother and sister-in-law — two or three years older than him. And the other must be his nephew. They’re all out at the moment. But where is his own room?” A look of puzzlement crossed Ye Fan’s face.

He murmured a silent apology, then transformed into a streak of light and slipped into the living room, concealing his presence, and carefully searched the space — but there was no trace that Pang Bo had ever lived there.

Then, all at once, his expression shifted sharply. He had found a framed photograph — one of the kind used for the deceased. It was a black and white portrait of Pang Bo.

Ye Fan felt as though he had been struck by lightning. How could this be? Pang Bo had never left Earth — and now he was dead. This was his best friend. Wherever in the world, he had never wished any harm upon him.

He stood there completely stunned, unable to accept this fact. His body was trembling. First his parents — and now even his closest friend was gone?

“Little Bo’s anniversary is almost here again. Time passes so quickly. Ten years already.” Pang Bo’s father sighed heavily.

Ye Fan’s mind reeled. Pang Bo had been dead for ten years. How had he died? He refused to believe it — back in their school days, the two of them had been in better physical condition than anyone. How could he have died so young?

“More than twenty years ago, Little Bo didn’t make it to Mount Tai — he escaped that disaster. But it seems heaven had made up its mind. No escaping it, no matter what. Ah.” His mother wiped her eyes and walked over to wipe the picture frame — his tenth anniversary was nearly upon them.

“That boy…” Pang Bo’s father said softly, and then fell quiet again, sitting there in silence, smoking.

“I beg your pardon,” Ye Fan whispered. He extended his divine sense into the minds of the two elders, intent on uncovering everything.

Half a quarter-hour later, he withdrew and left, standing on the rooftop of the building in a daze, unable to believe any of it.

The circumstances of Pang Bo’s death were deeply strange — he had been struck by lightning and killed, in an uninhabited stretch of wilderness. No wonder his mother grieved that fate had refused to let him go even after he had escaped Mount Tai.

Ye Fan’s entire being was thrown into complete bewilderment. All of this had exceeded everything he had anticipated. He murmured to himself: “Heaven — what are you doing? Even if the true Pang Bo was on Earth all along, even if he never boarded the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin, you could not have been this merciless.”

He didn’t know how he left. Before he realized it, he was looking out over the cemetery district of City N, gazing at the rows upon rows of stone markers. His feet felt impossibly heavy.

By now, he truly dreaded places like this. The greatest pain in this world was the parting of the living from the dead. And it had only been so many days — yet here he was, facing it again.

In a place where pines and cypress grew green and dense, Ye Fan found Pang Bo’s grave marker. He stood there in silence for a long time, then set down the large armful of white flowers he had carried in his hands.

“I truly cannot believe you have gone…”

Ye Fan sat down on the ground, took out a bottle of liquor, and poured it out gurgling over the earth. Then he lit several cigarettes, took one long drag from each, and placed them before the stone marker.

“How could things be this way? Everything feels like a dream. I have often wondered — was any of it real, everything in the northern stellar region? Now I have woken up, and this is what I find — this cruelty.”

Ye Fan sat before the grave and lit a cigarette for himself. After being away from Earth for so long — more than twenty years — he tasted once again that haze of drifting smoke and emptiness.

He sat in silence for a long time. He smoked an entire pack before murmuring at last: “If I’m being honest — I don’t believe you died.”

Then came another stretch of quiet as he sat there thinking, deeply and intently, turning everything over in his mind. And then, as though something had suddenly come clear all at once, he rose sharply to his feet and crushed a cigarette butt hard into the ground beneath his foot.

“To be exact — I don’t believe the one in that grave was the real Pang Bo. My friend is still alive. He just hasn’t come back yet.”

Ye Fan’s gaze turned razor-sharp. His entire presence blazed with vital energy and spirit, like a man readying himself for a great battle — every edge of him fully exposed. It was as different from the dejection of recent days as heaven from earth.

“This is a battle. I will drag you out from wherever you are hiding!”

Setting aside, for a moment, the true character of the Pang Bo in the northern stellar region — that loyal, wholehearted companion — even from what he had just observed in the memories of the two elders, there were several telling details that raised suspicion.

First: the manner of death was far too strange. To be struck dead by lightning, and in the wilderness — and his face at death had been so monstrously distorted that it had shocked everyone who saw it. That was ten years ago.

Second: the temperament was wrong. From what he had seen in the memories of the two elders, this Pang Bo’s behavior and mannerisms had been somewhat peculiar — even the two old people themselves had found it confusing at times.

Third: why had he quit his job and spent years wandering among ancient ruins and mountain ranges across the land — and yet always seemed to have inexhaustible money?

Fourth: why had he been so insistent on asking the two elders for the names of every blood relative they had — and then gone to visit each and every one of them, no matter how distant or long-estranged?

In short, many of his words and actions had left the two elders bewildered, unable to make sense of them. The only thing they remembered was that on one occasion, when he seemed to have been drinking, he let slip that their family line carried the blood of a demonic god within it.

Naturally, that had earned him a sharp slap from the old man, who smacked him awake and cursed him for talking utter nonsense.

“Earth is far more complex than I imagined…”

Ye Fan returned to Pang Bo’s home and reached out carefully with his senses. Sure enough, he found that this powerfully-built old man’s vital energy was more vigorous than that of ordinary people.

“No wonder Pang Bo was so imposing — towering above everyone, his arms thicker than other men’s thighs. Could it be that his bloodline truly carried ancient demon heritage? No wonder the descendants of the Cyan Emperor lineage all coveted his physical form.”

He murmured to himself. The blood vitality of Pang Bo’s father and elder brother was slightly more robust than average, but not enough to truly astonish him — perhaps it varied between individuals. Maybe only certain people could manifest the ancestral reversion.

“Could Pang Bo cultivate the Cyan Emperor’s Ancient Scripture because his bloodline had awakened within him?”

Ye Fan spent several days in City N, gathered enough information, and helped improve the physical condition of Pang Bo’s parents — repeatedly cleansing their flesh, blood, and internal organs with spiritual medicines — though he did not reveal himself.

On this southward journey, he had not collected enough evidence to be one hundred percent certain that the one who had died was a false Pang Bo. So after leaving, he began to mobilize every resource available to him to investigate.

“Did he actually go to Mount Tai that year or not?”

Seeking to verify this at Mount Tai itself was obviously impossible — so many years had passed, who could possibly remember?

He pursued an indirect route of inquiry, tracking down the company where Pang Bo had worked at the time, hoping to find former colleagues who might reveal some clue. Unfortunately, all the relevant people had long since left.

It must be said — an ordinary person would have found this completely impossible, like searching for a needle in the ocean. But Ye Fan was no ordinary person. Though it took considerable effort, he eventually found them.

He quietly examined their buried memories and at last confirmed the truth: Pang Bo had gone to Mount Tai. The plane ticket had even been booked by one of his colleagues.

At the time, Pang Bo had claimed — as had both the real and the false versions of him — that something had come up at home. The deceased Pang Bo had returned home on the very day of the Mount Tai incident and claimed he had never made it there.

But the colleague who had booked the ticket held a different memory: when Pang Bo had gotten off the plane and transferred to the long-distance coach heading for the foot of Mount Tai, he had called that very colleague specifically to express his gratitude.

Ye Fan smiled. Though roundabout and laborious, and though the process had been troublesome and convoluted, he had at last determined the truth: the Pang Bo who died was almost certainly a false one. For him, this was immensely significant — it was the most wonderful news imaginable.

“Are there still ancient demon clans living in secret? I’ll see for myself what you’re after.”

Not long after returning to City B, Ye Fan received a call from Yang Xiao, who mentioned something that had to do with the small stone Buddha.

According to Yang Xiao, those few ancient characters had deeply shaken the Sanskrit authority from before, who had gone on to consult his own teacher, and as a result had somehow alarmed several mysterious senior masters.

“They have come to City B. They absolutely insist on meeting you, and I simply couldn’t turn them away.” Yang Xiao sounded deeply troubled.

“It’s only a few ancient Sanskrit characters — was it really necessary to draw them all the way here from India?” said Ye Fan.

“The ones who came are several elderly monks. The people accompanying them treat them practically like living Buddhas — they might as well be kneeling in worship. Apparently some kind of divine manifestation was involved. But what era are we living in? Even if one has faith, it shouldn’t go that far.” Yang Xiao was a man of scholarship, and naturally had no patience for such things.

A thought stirred in Ye Fan’s mind. On the other side of the mountains, the dominant faith now was Hinduism — Buddhism had long since declined in its land of origin. For senior masters to travel such an immense distance, there had to be a reason. Could there truly be people on this earth who still cultivated?

This was well-timed, actually. He was currently investigating everything connected to the false Pang Bo. If these were truly hidden masters of the world, he might be able to follow the thread and learn everything about the current state of affairs on Earth.