Dou Yanshan was dead. Like everyone else, he too would die. In death he also attracted swarms of flies—who knew how these creatures lived? Wherever there was flesh and blood, there they would be.

The climate of Nanzhao was warm and humid. Within a day, corpses would breed insects and maggots. In less than three days, all the flesh on an entire corpse would be devoured clean by those tiny creatures, leaving only a pristine white skeleton to be buffeted by wind and rain, finally returning to its ultimate origin.

Dou Yanshan was dead, and Yun Ye discovered he wasn’t happy about it. He only felt an empty hollowness in his heart. Those flies had reached the point where they couldn’t be driven away no matter what, brazenly laying maggots on his face and wounds. Yun Ye swatted at them with a bamboo stick, killing a swath of them while also breaking Dou Yanshan’s skin, but Yun Ye didn’t care—he was already dead anyway. As far as his own cleanliness obsession went, a bit of broken skin was far less terrifying than flies laying maggots on a body.

Yun Ye was using Dou Yanshan’s horizontal blade to dig a pit. This was a treasured sword with beautiful chrysanthemum patterns on the blade surface. No one would treat such a treasured blade so roughly—they would invariably oil it and store it away on a high shelf, wiping the edge gently with the softest silk during leisure time, until the moment it tasted blood.

A treasured blade wasn’t as useful as a shovel—this was Yun Ye’s current feeling. To prevent more flies from laying maggots on Dou Yanshan’s body, Yun Ye worked hard at digging the pit.

Dou Yanshan had a magnificent physique, a standard man of Guanzhong. His height of one point nine meters forced Yun Ye to dig a pit two meters long to bury him. Being tall had no advantages—it wasted fabric for clothing, required eating more than others, and most critically, even graves took up more space than others. After driving away the flies, Yun Ye dragged Dou Yanshan by his feet and pulled him to the edge of the grave pit. Though his head knocked loudly against the broken stones as he was brought down from the platform, Dou Yanshan showed no objection and still grinned in laughter.

There was nothing more to say to him—everything that needed saying had been said. He’d even recited Zheng Banqiao’s poem to him. Look, what a fortunate Tang Dynasty person!

Yun Ye placed some bamboo beneath his body and covered him with some as well, serving as a makeshift coffin. The ever-elegant Dou Yanshan would surely be pleased. Didn’t the books say it was better to eat without meat than to live without bamboo? Such an arrangement was the height of elegance—not everyone got this treatment.

There was too much excavated earth, so the grave mound was quite high. As long as there wasn’t another downpour like the day before yesterday, this grave mound should last a long time. There was a small pool of water nearby. Yun Ye used bamboo to push the butler’s half-corpse into it. The smell of internal organs was unpleasant and couldn’t compare to a pig’s. Yun Ye didn’t want to bathe again in rainy weather. He pushed in the leg with buttocks still attached that had been near the crocodile’s mouth. Standing at the pit’s edge, he counted and discovered a leg was missing. The dead were of utmost importance—since he had the ability to prevent an incomplete corpse, he should help out. Yun Ye decided to cut open the crocodile’s belly to find the missing leg.

If this had been before, Yun Ye definitely wouldn’t have passed up the crocodile skin or crocodile meat—one was good material for making bags, the other a good medicinal ingredient for treating coughs. Now he held the knife and forcefully pried open along that wound. The internal organs spilled out with a splash. After picking out that sticky leg, Yun Ye was surprised to see the Tango Queen. Though only a skeleton remained, that pair of yellowish-brown buck teeth still looked so amusing. Other than her, no one’s teeth could grow half an inch long—they were almost fangs.

He couldn’t be bothered with the butler’s leg anymore. Holding up the empty skeleton, he came to the riverside and washed it clean with water. She was already ugly—if she got any dirtier, she’d be unbearable to look at.

Had the crocodile brought Tango over, or had Tango brought the crocodile over? Yun Ye didn’t want to pursue this matter. Tango couldn’t beat Dou Yanshan, so it was better not to bury them together. A fellow who planned to command a hundred thousand banners to strike down the King of Hell really wasn’t someone a dirt-covered queen like Tango could provoke.

After Yun Ye finished piling up a grave mound for the butler, he found two pieces of wood, carved out white surfaces, and used the horizontal blade to carve names on them before inserting them in front of the two graves respectively. The imposing grave sites were complete. He always felt something was missing. The Yun family graves always had offerings. Though they were constantly stolen and eaten by Yun Shiba, there were always some—unceasing through the four seasons and eight festivals. These two grave mounds were rather pitiful with nothing at all. He didn’t want to use stones to deceive ghosts. Even Tango had shown up—this place of Nanzhao was truly somewhat supernatural.

He picked up a stone and threw it at the monkeys watching the excitement from the cliff. What a disaster—a large group of monkeys retaliated with wild fruits from beside them, like a rainstorm. Last time they had treated the crocodile the same way.

Who knew if the wild fruits were edible? What monkeys could eat, humans generally had no problem with too. Looking at the genetic chain, there wasn’t much difference between humans and monkeys.

The greenish wild fruits placed before the graves immediately brightened things up considerably. When the exhausted Yun Ye lay on the beach and bit into a fruit, only to be pulled back from his dazed state by those terrifying acidic juices, did he realize he was purely stuffed full with nothing better to do, performing those pointless tasks.

Carrying the horizontal blade with Tango’s skull tucked under his arm, he bounded back to the opposite bank in just a few leaps. After reaching the shore, he always felt something was off. His state today wasn’t right—it seemed he’d overlooked something.

To check what was wrong with him, Yun Ye decided to repeat the steps of crossing the river. But just as he turned around, he knew what was wrong.

The lake water had disappeared. The shallow bit of water was actually flowing backward. No wonder he hadn’t heard the waterfall’s roaring for a while. Yun Ye, who never believed in ghosts and spirits, almost wanted to kneel on the ground and pray to heaven, begging forgiveness for his past disrespect toward the old man up there.

Later, remembering those karst caves he’d seen while floating on the river surface, he straightened his knees that had been about to kneel. It was nothing—this river was just about to become an underground river.

He’d just been worrying about how to get out, but now he didn’t need to think about it. Just follow the riverbed forward. Perhaps he could return to Tango’s kingdom. That fellow Qu Zhuo was still there. Tango’s home must now be Great Tang territory.

Seeing Yun Ye return, Wang Cai ran over joyfully to frolic. Yun Ye hugged his big head and rubbed it vigorously a few times, considering it consolation.

They couldn’t leave today. Make preparations and set out tomorrow. Walking at night could get you killed. If you didn’t want to become a pile of carnivore feces, it was best to find a safe place to hide at night.

After securing the silk thread and making himself some food, during his leisure time he used the crocodile’s claw to groom Wang Cai’s fur, then prepared to sleep with a camphor wood pillow. Seeing Tango’s skull seemingly smiling at him, he irritably threw a hemp cloth over it, covering her completely.

Those foolish monkeys were calling “ooh ooh” again, their calls full of joy. They were desecrating the corpse. That crocodile’s carcass would completely disappear by tomorrow morning. Monkeys sometimes ate meat too…

The cacophony continued for most of the night, then fell silent, as if everything had entered dreamland.

In dreams one could leap across time and space and distance. There Yun Ye was an omnipotent person. Sometimes it was the prosperity of modern society, sometimes the exquisite songs and dances of Yanlai Tower, sometimes Na Rimu’s silly smiling face, sometimes Xinyue’s upturned eyebrows, even Xiao Lingdang’s shy appearance. There was one face he couldn’t see clearly—sometimes the background was high-rises, sometimes the blue-tiled Imperial City, veiled in red sunlight, appearing and disappearing…

Loneliness was the original sin. To seek psychological comfort, Yun Ye tirelessly rushed between reality and dreams, shuttling between reality and the future. When day broke, Yun Ye felt extremely tired. A night’s rest not only failed to restore his energy but consumed much of it.

Wang Cai perked up his ears with nothing to say. He had no way to accuse Yun Ye of viciously kicking him all night with his feet.

Time to go. After packing up, Yun Ye looked reluctantly at the small cave that had provided brief shelter, pressed his palms together, and bowed to the ancient people here before leading Wang Cai to search for a way out.

The green bamboo inserted on Dou Yanshan’s grave remained verdant, swaying in the misty drizzle as if bidding Yun Ye farewell. Waving at the grave, Yun Ye memorized the terrain. If possible, he hoped the Dou family could come here to collect his remains.

“Red thread and that green thread thread, blue and clear clear sky, giving birth to an orchid flower really could kill a person with love…” He loved the tune of Xin Tian You most of all, especially under gray and gloomy skies. The loud and clear Xin Tian You seemed to pierce through the heavens. Add to that the enthusiastic audience on both sides of the cliff showering down green fruits like an avalanche—it was no less impressive than Pan An’s fruit-throwing admirers filling his carriage.

Yun Ye cupped his hands, thanking those overly enthusiastic spectators. To repay them for the kindness of throwing two stones at him, Yun Ye began bellowing rock music from the New Long March.

“One, two three, four, heard of it, never seen it…” All the way singing wildly, all the way poetry, all the way fruit, a head full of lumps. Yun Ye cheerfully walked a full twenty li before stopping. The reason he stopped was because he saw a spectacular human marvel.

The rolling waves from upstream, upon reaching here, were immediately swallowed by a giant mouth with not a drop remaining. That giant mouth showed signs of continuing to expand. If he didn’t stop and kept walking forward, he might encounter a collapse.

Climbing from the riverbed onto the shore, the sound of water thundered. Below was a black hole with no visible bottom. In Guanzhong there was a legend of the old Jing River Dragon drinking three rivers dry in one breath. Could there be a water-loving old dragon here too?

His playful spirit rising, he undid his belt and relieved himself heartily into the river. Just as he was about to say “let me lend you a stream’s strength,” the ground beneath his feet immediately became unstable. A crack extended from afar, right between his legs. Yun Ye’s soul nearly left his body. Leading Wang Cai, he fled rolling and tumbling, not daring to look back. He only heard earth-shaking sounds and all sorts of strange and bizarre noises right behind his head. His foot slipped and with a splat, he fell to the ground.

Eyes closed, waiting for death. No movement. Cautiously opening a crack, there was no Old Dragon King. Less than ten meters behind him, everything had disappeared, transformed into a large black hole.

His heart pounded like drums. He didn’t know if what Cao Cao said at Huarong Road was that accurate—the slightest disrespect on his part would immediately bring disaster.

Resentfully he kicked the stone that had tripped him. It didn’t move? Yun Ye crouched down and carefully wiped away the wet mud on top, only to discover this was the world’s most useful yet most useless natural metal—gold. This was a solid nugget of gold.