Xian Qionghua’s head felt as big as a bucket. “What do you… mean? The Kuang family’s oral account is false?”

Was it possible that the Kuang family’s ancestors were like the Water Ghost’s patriarch, both deceiving their descendants? What trust could exist between ancestors and descendants?

Fortunately, Jiang Lian shook his head. “That’s not quite it. The Yanluo did obtain a qilin crystal based on this account, and did indeed complete one ‘Yanluo begets Yanluo’ transformation—from this perspective, the oral account isn’t false.”

“I just think the information that the Kuang family craftsmen discovered needs to be questioned.”

“We now know the most valuable thing from a qilin is the qilin crystal, which is key to self-reproduction. More broadly, it’s the foundation for the entire divine race’s continuation. If the Yellow Emperor’s clan wasn’t certain that qilin crystals were impossible to find anymore, why would they make such a decision as ‘cross-generational divine-human fusion’?”

Shen Gun started to understand the implications.

Indeed, as long as qilin crystals existed, there was hope. The Yellow Emperor’s vast resources and numerous subordinates—wouldn’t they have been searching for a qilin?

Jiang Lian chose his words carefully: “From our modern perspective, with qilin crystals being so important, qilin should have been a protected species, officially bred in captivity. Extinction doesn’t happen overnight—it’s a process, with the qilin gradually decreasing in number. The divine race should have noticed this ominous sign long before the last qilin died.”

His point was quite straightforward now. Jing Rusi nodded: “Little Jiang makes a lot of sense. It’s like vital national resources—before they’re depleted, a country would either find new sources or desperately develop alternatives. They wouldn’t just wait until the day of depletion to panic.”

Jiang Lian said, “That’s the first point: the divine race searched desperately for many years, using all their resources, yet found nothing. But Chi You’s faction sent out one elite team and somehow found one.”

He left the first point there for everyone to contemplate.

Jiang Lian continued to the second point: “When I saw the oral account mention Fu Xi’s descendants and their divine sight for divination, I realized that Fu Xi was the creator of the Eight Trigrams. In ancient times, people consulted the trigrams before important decisions—whether to go to war, when to sow crops—divination had permeated daily life…”

Meng Qianzi exclaimed suddenly: “Did they confirm the qilin’s extinction through divination?”

Jiang Lian nodded: “For something this significant, as the saying goes, ‘one won’t give up until reaching the Yellow River.’ To make the entire clan accept reality and seek alternatives, they needed definitive proof. One divination might not be believed, so perhaps they did it again and again, with different people performing the divinations, all reaching the same conclusion before everyone finally accepted it. That’s the second point: Fu Xi’s descendants’ divinations showed qilin were extinct, yet Chi You’s faction’s small team found one.”

By now, the ironic contrast was thick in the air.

Jing Rusi murmured, “So there was never a living qilin? Why spread such false news? What benefit could that bring?”

Meng Qianzi said, “Plenty of benefits, Fourth Aunt. We’ve led people before—haven’t we spread false information sometimes? Often, subordinates don’t care whether news is true or false; they welcome good news most of all.”

Xian Qionghua sighed: “Yes, at that time, Chi You’s faction had been defeated and retreated to desolate areas. Overall, morale must have been very low. Suddenly finding a qilin would be like administering a heart stimulant to followers. Wouldn’t it create a sense of destiny? Make people feel there was hope again?”

That made sense. Jing Rusi finally understood. She was nearly sixty years old—it wasn’t easy for her to wrap her mind around such complex schemes.

Yet Jiang Lian wouldn’t let her rest: “However, it’s not entirely false. We need to look deeper—there are true elements within.”

Heavens! If Jing Rusi had a hammer, she would have grabbed Jiang Lian and pounded seven or eight bumps on his head. “What’s true and what’s false? Little Jiang, please explain it clearly at once. My brain has just sorted things out, and with one sentence, you’ve turned it back into porridge.”

Xian Qionghua laughed, thinking her fourth sister was like a child: “Fourth Sister, let Jiang Lian explain slowly.”

Jiang Lian smiled too: “The reason I say it’s not entirely false is because the Yanluo did find a qilin crystal after arriving here. So there’s a paradox—without a living qilin, there should be no qilin crystal, but in reality, with no living qilin, there was still a qilin crystal. So the question is, where did this crystal come from?”

Just then, Shen Gun suddenly snorted coldly and said, “Where did it come from? They dug it out from the dead one, of course.”

With these words, the tent fell into extreme silence.

Shen Gun seemed completely unaware, still looking at the paper that Xian Qionghua and the others had finished reading and put down.

After a pause, Meng Qianzi asked him: “What did you just say?”

Shen Gun looked puzzled, raising his head with a bewildered expression: “What did I say?”

Meng Qianzi felt the situation had become extremely strange, with the hair on her body standing on end: “Just now, when Jiang Lian asked where the qilin crystal came from, what did you answer?”

Shen Gun froze: “Did I speak? I didn’t say anything…”

What was happening? Xian Qionghua and Jing Rusi exchanged glances, both instinctively moving further away.

Shen Gun finally realized something was wrong. His face paled as he looked to Jiang Lian for help: “Little Lian-Lian, did I… say something I don’t know about again? What did I say?”

Jiang Lian’s mind was pounding. He first explained to Meng Qianzi: “Shen Gun used to have dreams, remember? Lately, he hasn’t been dreaming, but he occasionally says strange things without being aware of it… Wait, everyone, please be quiet.”

Though brief, Shen Gun’s sudden statement contained enormous information. It was as if a gate had opened, with something continuously flowing into Jiang Lian’s mind.

Jing Rusi watched Shen Gun warily, strongly suspecting he was possessed by something, considering whether binding him might be safer.

Outside, the wind grew stronger, coming from the snow-capped peak, brushing over the tent. It might have carried snow particles, causing the tent top to make constant rustling sounds. Jiang Lian looked up, his lips dry, and said: “I understand now.”

The last qilin had already died, and the golden-winged phoenix had also reached its end.

This was true. There were no living qilin. Chi You’s people dispatched that small team with a secret mission—not to find living qilin, but to dig up dead qilin corpses.

Jiang Lian said: “I don’t know much about these ancient divine beasts, but I’ve heard of a tree called the Populus euphratica—a thousand years without dying, a thousand years without falling after death, a thousand years without decaying after falling. Since qilin could live for two thousand years, their corpses probably wouldn’t decompose quickly either.”

“That team must have dug up several corpses, or perhaps just the last one to die. The details aren’t important. What matters is that they found a qilin crystal inside one of them.”

Meng Qianzi’s lips moved, wanting to say something. Jiang Lian guessed her thoughts and quickly added, “An undeveloped qilin crystal. If it had been mature, it would have been used long ago. So it must have been undeveloped—something the divine race considered worthless.”

Shen Gun excitedly slapped his thigh, his face flushing red. Jiang Lian could tell he had also reached the key insight, though Jing Rusi was startled, thinking the man was having another episode, nearly pouncing to pin him down.

Due to his excitement, Shen Gun’s speech tone went off-key: “There were no more qilin crystals! They had reached a dead end and were taking desperate measures, trying to create their own! First, qilin crystals are nurtured inside qilin bodies. With no qilin left, they needed to find a surrogate.”

Meng Qianzi blurted out: “The Taisui!”

After speaking, she couldn’t help but laugh: Shen Gun had called the Taisui a “surrogate.”

Jiang Lian continued: “Furthermore, one qilin crystal wasn’t nearly enough. Chi You’s faction had many people with great demand.”

Shen Gun jumped in: “Breeding soil! They needed breeding soil to make one become two, two become three, and three become many more!”

Jiang Lian took a blank piece of paper and picked up his brush: “They also needed water essence to preserve their original consciousness. Otherwise, if consciousness dissipated, ‘resurrection’ would be meaningless.”

As he spoke, he drew a square frame on the paper, then looked at Meng Qianzi: “Now we know Chi You’s faction had such a plan, but they were defeated. All divine artifacts and tools were confiscated by the Yellow Emperor, who planned to seal everything in boxes. If you wanted to achieve this plan, what would you need?”

This question was perfect for Meng Qianzi. As the Mountain Ghost Throne, she would approach it from practical and operational angles, not just answer theoretically.

Sure enough, Meng Qianzi pondered for a moment, then said: “I would need an inside agent directly involved in the box-sealing process. Only then could I know exactly where all the items I needed were located.”

Jiang Lian wrote “inside agent” on the paper: “At that time, finding an inside agent in the Yellow Emperor’s faction shouldn’t have been difficult. Many divine race members followed him because he had won and because they had no alternatives, not because they were truly willing to merge with humans… Continue, what else would you need to obtain?”

Shen Gun’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he looked at the words “inside agent,” finding them strangely disturbing.

Meng Qianzi thought carefully: “I would need water essence, breeding soil, mountain gall… I would want the mountain gall because it’s the natural enemy of water essence. Leaving such a thing with enemies would be too dangerous for me.”

Jiang Lian wrote these items inside the square frame. Only then did Xian Qionghua realize what was happening, softly explaining to Jing Rusi that the frame represented the box.

Meng Qianzi couldn’t think of anything else: “Those are probably the main items.”

Good. Jiang Lian turned to Shen Gun: “You’ve told us about your dreams many times. Through them, I have a general concept of what the inventory scene was like.”

“Overall, they were all divine artifacts—even Nüwa’s clay figurines and Fu Xi’s Eight Trigrams were included. Water essence and breeding soil weren’t particularly precious among those items. There was no strict requirement about which item must go into which box—everyone worked freely together, even helping each other. For instance, ‘My box is full, let me put this in yours.”

Shen Gun swallowed. He recalled one dream where someone carrying seven beast bones told him their box was full, and he had helpfully taken them.

“In other words, that inside agent could, through various means—stealing or swapping—put everything Chi You’s faction needed into one box. Stealing one box is certainly more convenient than stealing several, right?”

Jing Rusi interjected: “Of course! Get it all done at once—even thieves must be efficient.”

It seemed this fourth aunt had unconsciously accepted his theory. Jiang Lian felt quite accomplished.

“Another question: that box couldn’t contain only these items. To avoid suspicion, they would need to include other things. At minimum, the box should be full before sealing. From what I know, the seven beast bones and the Sheng family’s nine bells all came from this box.”

Saying this, he glanced at Meng Qianzi’s ankle: “Qianzi, your golden bell is likely from there too.”

Meng Qianzi was caught off guard: “Huh?”

But she quickly realized: indeed, the golden bell was too unusual. It must also have been an ancient artifact meant to be sealed.

Jiang Lian explained: “The Sheng family’s nine bells, the golden bell with nine uses—the Sheng family’s bells communicate with the deceased, while yours communicates with mountains, mountain beasts, and even mountain winds. Simply put, they’re of the same nature and should be from the same series. I even suspect the Sheng family’s bells were originally like yours—just nine different bell pieces that later, in different branches’ hands, were disassembled and wrapped in fancy casings.”

Shen Gun added, “It’s also possible this golden bell was specifically requested by Chi You’s faction. Nothing comes without benefit. The Mountain Ghosts followed Chi You—they must have received some reward. Besides, the golden bell is necessary for cutting mountains to hide the mountain gall.”

Perhaps so. Jiang Lian wrote these items into the square frame, then lifted the paper toward Meng Qianzi: “Now the box is ready. How would you steal it?”

Meng Qianzi thought for a moment: “Timing, terrain, and people. I would need to act when the opponent’s defenses were relaxed. I would also need to know exactly where this box was placed—otherwise, with a hundred similar-looking boxes, it would be impossible to identify.”

Exactly. Jiang Lian exhaled deeply: “All of this would require the inside agent’s arrangements. When organizing the boxes, they would need to—seemingly casually but deliberately—place the box in a specific location. This way, their accomplice could have a clear target, succeed with one strike, without any hesitation.”

Shen Gun recalled the hands reaching out from the thick fog to steal the box in his earliest dream, feeling a complex mix of emotions.

Xian Qionghua also felt somewhat wistful, her gaze falling on the Kuang ancestor’s account: “They stole the box but couldn’t open it, so they tracked down the original craftsman based on the markings. That’s probably how the Kuang family got involved.”

Meng Qianzi took the paper with Jiang Lian’s simple box drawing from his hand. As she looked at it, her mind started to wander.

After opening the box, there must have been further arrangements. The Water Ghosts got the water essence, the Mountain Ghosts hid the mountain gall, with mountains and waters never meeting; the Kuang family took an empty box and fled far away, keeping to themselves, staying away from the jianghu; the Sheng family got the bells and settled in deep mountains; no one knew where the seven beast bones went, but seven malevolent spirits entered the world, even alarming the sage Laozi…

Was there anything else in the box? Perhaps, but nothing as important. Maybe Chi You’s followers divided the rest amongst themselves. Who knew what the distribution criteria were, or if disputes arose over unequal shares…

It didn’t matter now. The larger framework had formed: the Drifting Underground Cave, the Water Ghost’s legacy, the Golden Soup Cave, and the mysterious prophecy of “flying without wings, facing without a face.” The Water Ghosts, with their special physiology, were the ideal transformation vessels, but if their numbers proved insufficient, the Golden Soup Cave provided lesser backups.

She heard Jiang Lian say softly, “Now I understand the source of the Water Ghost family’s misfortunes these past decades.”

Why did those resurrected people, despite their perfect appearances, never live long? Why could “Yanluo begets Yanluo” only happen once, instead of self-reproduction generation after generation, like in ancient times?

Because that qilin crystal was obtained from an excavated, dead qilin—an undeveloped, discarded product.

A qilin lived for two thousand years and produced only one crystal, showing how difficult it was to obtain a qilin crystal. This crystal, using the Taisui as a “surrogate mother,” was already developmentally flawed. Who knew how many long years it took to mature, and how much longer before one became two, two became three, three became many…

She murmured: “When the crystal is complete, ‘flying without wings, facing without a face’—wasn’t that divination a lie? It didn’t succeed.”

Jiang Lian said, “That’s not entirely true. Shen Gun and I have discussed this. Divination essentially transcends the dimension of time, glimpsing certain appearances of the future. Divination can’t answer questions, tell you durations, or guide you east or west—it only gives you an image, which you must interpret yourself. For example, if you see your future self cutting someone with a knife, you don’t know the cause and effect, whether you’re defending yourself, deliberately harming someone, or acting unintentionally.”

“Their divination might have only shown people being reborn with perfect appearances. How long these people lived afterward or what happened next, they couldn’t know. But this image was enough to make them go all-in, investing everything, believing this path was viable.”

Meng Qianzi softly said, “Oh,” then asked, “So there’s no hope for the Water Ghosts?”

She remembered Zong Hang’s smile and his repeated requests.

Jiang Lian was silent.

The Water Ghost situation was essentially like an accident—a collective use of the wrong medicine. The medicine had already been taken and couldn’t be expelled. Some died early, others lingered on. Some initiated this death, others concluded it. Whether long or short-lived, they were all victims of the same fate.

Meng Qianzi said nothing more. As if to distract herself, she began collecting the papers from the ground.

She heard her voice, softly floating by her ears: “But who will tell Zong Hang?”

Jing Rusi saw her mood darken: “Qianzi, don’t get too emotionally invested when helping others. I know about the Water Ghost family’s situation. Most of those affected have already died. If more die, it’s just one or two more—there won’t be significant further losses. They probably already know deep down and are merely seeking closure through our help.”

Meng Qianzi looked up at her: “What do you mean ‘just one or two more’? Even if it’s only one or two, those who love and care for them will grieve.”

When a flower withers, the mountain doesn’t know or care, but the flower beside it does care.

Jiang Lian reached out, seemingly wanting to hold her hand. Meng Qianzi avoided it, smiled, and said: “I’m fine.”

As she spoke, without even noticing, a tear slid down her cheek and dropped onto the neatly arranged papers.

She looked down.

The top sheet was the route map Jiang Lian had drawn. No one had time or thought to look at it. The tear fell on the upper part of the page, the moist tearmark blurring several characters.

Kunlun Heavenly Ladder.

(End of Volume Eight)