Fragments of… countless futures?

Upon hearing these words, Jian Chou slightly furrowed her brow, but what appeared in her eyes was not surprise, but rather a calm sense of “as expected.”

Her moon-white robes were embroidered with deep and light blue cloud-thunder patterns, and the ancient, treasure-adorned lotus-patterned Randeng Sword was held in her palm. Perhaps sensing a thread of dangerous aura emanating from the Saint Hall behind them, it automatically emitted a circle of warm yellow lamp-like radiance, gently trembling and flickering.

Jiye gazed at her, feeling somewhat surprised after all.

Because Jian Chou was not surprised.

Generally speaking, anything related to so-called “glimpsing the future” should seem incredibly unbelievable to ordinary people, yet Jian Chou’s reaction was far too ordinary, even too indifferent, as if this was not something worth being surprised about in her view.

“Why do you look completely unsurprised?” Jiye was slightly puzzled, but then remembered a certain great demon that had appeared in those light-fragment-like future scenes, and his expression shifted to understanding. “I forgot, your other friend, using the dual eyes of the Bimu Universe, can also glimpse the future… Has he ever looked for you?”

Even Fu Chaosheng was known to him.

Jian Chou couldn’t help but admire this Saint Son’s remarkable abilities in her heart, also recalling how twenty years ago during their first meeting by this lakeside, he had easily called her “Qiaguo Suba.” Regarding Fu Chaosheng’s matter, she might still have the heart to conceal it from others, but for Jiye, there was probably no need for such concealment.

So she smiled: “Friend Chaosheng indeed has this ability, and perhaps has truly glimpsed the vast and uncertain future, but has never informed me of it. Among those who have spoken prophecies to me, perhaps only the Saint Son stands alone. Eighty-one years ago in the Extreme Domain, the Saint Son through Zongtu’s mouth told me that eighty-one years later I would become the Saint Son’s close friend, helping to fulfill the Saint Son’s nirvana. Since the Saint Son dared to speak thus, he must have glimpsed the future. So now that the Saint Son tells me he has seen me in countless fragments of future, what is there to be surprised about?”

“Then you believe what I said is true?”

Jiye’s gaze toward her became even more peculiar.

The youth’s stature was actually still a bit shorter than Jian Chou’s. At this moment, standing barefoot on the ground, he stepped closer to her as he spoke, with the rippling light of the Sacred Lake behind him falling on his snow-white woven monk’s robes, creating a spreading gentleness.

But Jian Chou shook her head: “These words are naturally untrue. There may be many fellow travelers in this world, and countless chance encounters, but few can become friends, let alone close friends. Even if the Saint Son knows me in great detail, I know little about the Saint Son. Perhaps the Saint Son views me as a close friend, but to me, the Saint Son is merely a passing stranger in this world.”

“Why can’t a passing stranger be a close friend?” Hearing her words that clearly contained rebuke, Jiye showed not a trace of displeasure, but instead curved his lips in a smile. “In this world, those whose words don’t align may know each other for ten years, a hundred years, or even a thousand years without becoming friends; those who share common aspirations, even as you said, with only a single meeting, a chance encounter, can become intimate friends.”

Common aspirations?

If before it was only vague speculation, now Jian Chou could deduce a few clues.

But at this moment, she also sensed someone else approaching.

The vast Sacred Lake spreading under this boundless night sky presented a magnificent and fantastical vision. The female demon or deity at the lake’s bottom remained submerged, sometimes watching them, sometimes gazing at the scattered cloud layers above.

In Jian Chou’s eyes, her existence was so obvious.

Yet the person now approaching from behind the temple to investigate the situation seemed unable to see any trace of her at all.

The Precious Vase Dharma King arrived quickly.

Twenty years ago when they had fought fiercely in this temple, Jian Chou had seen him, so now sensing his approaching aura, she turned and immediately recognized him.

In the blink of an eye, he had drawn near.

On the ice plain illuminated a dark red by the magnificent formation overhead, the Precious Vase Dharma King in his red robes appeared somber and dark.

When the wind blew, his robes billowed.

The feeling was like inflating a torn sack, not only failing to display his majesty but only making people feel an uncomfortable and eerie gauntness. His dried, aged skin made him look like a corpse that had been desiccated for years. His pair of gloomy and sharp eyes darted about, staring intently at the lakeside position, his gray-white eyebrows almost knitted into a ball.

Jian Chou could clearly see him, see his every movement, yet in his eyes, the Sacred Lake remained the Sacred Lake of old, neither containing those clear eyes at the lake bottom nor the strands of long hair floating in the water. There existed no figure that was indistinguishable between lake demon and deity, and certainly no two people standing openly on the lakeside conversing.

Saint Son Jiye’s methods were truly extraordinary.

Jian Chou couldn’t even sense what kind of changes surrounded her, nor did she know what method Jiye had used to make a powerful cultivator blind to everything before him and deaf to everything around him.

However, she quietly gripped the Randeng Sword tighter.

The Precious Vase Dharma King remained completely unaware of the danger lurking in the void before him. He furrowed his brow tightly, formed a hand seal, and brilliant white light immediately emanated from the string of human bone prayer beads in his palm, passing through the space where Jian Chou and Jiye stood without any obstruction.

No abnormalities whatsoever.

Thus Jian Chou suddenly realized: for her, this was an excellent, perfect opportunity to strike!

Now the Snowy Domain’s esoteric sect had only two remaining Dharma Kings. This approaching Precious Vase Dharma King was even more powerful than the former Precious Mirror Dharma King, but she was no longer the Jian Chou of those days either.

The Precious Seal Dharma King hadn’t appeared, so he must be maintaining the formation.

If she could seize this opportunity to eliminate one of them first, then regardless of whether Saint Son Jiye helped or not, with the abilities of the four powerful cultivators on their side, killing the Precious Seal would be child’s play!

Her gaze suddenly became profound and ice-cold, never leaving the gradually approaching figure of the Precious Vase Dharma King. Without turning her head, Jian Chou smiled and asked Jiye: “Throughout the entire Snowy Domain, it’s rumored that the Saint Son is a Buddha child who emerged from a hundred lifetimes of reincarnation, possessing strength and status that transcends the entire Snowy Domain. Today Jian Chou has not come to ‘reminisce’ with the Saint Son, but to destroy the New Esoteric sect. In earlier years, the Saint Son stood with the Old Esoteric faction. I wonder if the Saint Son has any regrets now?”

“I was born with a fate. Since I have appeared to meet Friend Jian Chou, naturally I won’t change my stance. However…” Jiye saw her body tensing as the Precious Vase Dharma King gradually approached, saw her fingers slowly tightening on the Randeng Sword, and couldn’t help asking, “Aren’t you curious what you looked like in those countless futures I saw, and what identity you held?”

“Is there a need to be curious?”

Especially at a time like this.

In Jian Chou’s heart, matters were always prioritized by urgency and importance, so at this moment she showed only an astonishing, almost indifferent coldness toward the question Jiye posed, answering: “Before lending the Cosmic Eye to that great demon friend of mine, I too once glimpsed the scenes the Cosmic Eye showed me through chance. What you can see is nearly without end. If the future is like a fixed thread on a loom, I already saw my own future over eighty years ago and need not ask again; if the future is uncertain, the ‘me’ you saw may not be the future me, so what use is asking? I only become who I want to become, not who you hope I’ll become.”

“…”

Jiye suddenly fell silent.

The youth’s gaze was filled with pure contemplation, and at this moment he found himself unable to look away from Jian Chou.

“Moreover…” Jian Chou’s voice paused, then she suddenly smiled, “If I haven’t guessed wrong, this so-called prophecy of ‘eighty-one years later’ is merely a method the Saint Son used to establish some connection with me, or rather, to fulfill this prophecy.”

“Hahaha…”

Jiye burst into laughter as well, his youthful face completely unable to conceal his amazement.

Because everything she said was absolutely true!

Eighty-one years ago, he didn’t know Jian Chou at all. It was only during the struggle between the new and old esoteric sects that he used his ability to glimpse heavenly secrets, thus seeing countless people and countless futures across this land of Jiushijiu Zhou.

The future was uncertain, without end.

Just as Jian Chou had speculated earlier, past, present, and future were not a straight line with a predetermined direction, but a tree with flourishing branches and leaves. Everything in the past could not be changed, yet all futures yet to come were endless branches extending from the great tree.

One never knew what would happen in the next moment, could not predict what changes would certainly occur in the next moment, and even people existing within time were ever-changing.

A person could never fathom their future self.

Jiye naturally could not fathom Jian Chou from these countless futures either; he had simply discovered her uniqueness.

—Born of Yashan, she was Yashan’s specially-positioned eldest senior sister, yet happened to have irreconcilable enmity with Xie Buchen, the true disciple of Kunwu’s chief seat, a giant of the Central Domain. Not only was her soul incomplete, but at that time she had even fallen as a living person into the Extreme Domain, unreachable by ordinary cultivators.

Opportunity, strength, character.

She lacked none of these!

How could such a person not arouse Jiye’s interest? He even vaguely saw certain common aspirations in her, and saw the possibility of bringing her to handle certain matters.

Therefore, he developed the desire to have connections with such a person, the desire to become friends with such a person, and worked hard to push events over the years toward the “future” and “results” he wanted.

Success depended on human effort.

All so-called “futures” depended only on the choices and actions of those within them, on each “present” moment.

He wanted to become friends with such a unique person.

He wanted to have such a friend who could help him in the future.

He wanted to complete what he wished to accomplish before his power or even consciousness disappeared.

Therefore, eighty-one years ago, he conveyed the prophecy to Jian Chou through Zongtu.

Therefore, twenty years ago, he handed a Qiaguo Suba flower to Qiaguo Suba.

Therefore, today, he picked up this bundle of blue kingfisher flowers and appeared in this world that was about to devour him.

In the depths of his clear blue eyes, several traces of faint melancholy suddenly surfaced. Jiye gazed at Jian Chou and slowly sighed: “During the past eighty years, I always felt time was far too slow, every minute and second was boring torment. Now seeing Friend Jian Chou again, I realize time is actually too fast. If only it could slow down, or even stop completely, how wonderful that would be…”

These words sounded oddly familiar.

The first thing Jian Chou thought of was Fu Chaosheng’s shockingly audacious words when they first met years ago.

However, at this moment, what rose from her heart was only a sudden, ominous premonition.

This premonition made her fingers gripping the Randeng Sword stiffen momentarily, then she turned to look at Jiye.

But Jiye offered no explanation.

Compared to when he first appeared here, his face showed even more of a fatalistic calm, his lips even curved in a smile arc, only asking Jian Chou: “Are you ready?”

“What?”

The sudden question, without any prior cause or buildup, left Jian Chou momentarily unable to react, looking at Jiye with almost bewildered eyes.

The next moment, her scalp exploded completely!

Because at the very instant those words fell, a brilliant, dazzling snow-blue radiance erupted thunderously from Jiye’s palm!

Like a snow-blue sun!

The terrifying brilliance contained terrifying power, sweeping in all directions like a storm! As it raged, it seemed that even the Sacred Ritual Great Formation overhead, reinforced by hundreds of thousands, millions of people, had to prostrate before its mighty and domineering majesty!

Yet at its core, it was so careful and gentle.

The pure, water-like blue light enveloped the fragile bundle of blue kingfisher flowers in his palm, like wrapping some precious treasure.

Through this endless brilliance, Jian Chou saw the youth’s smiling eyes and brows.

He had been standing at the edge of the Sacred Lake shore, and now, cradling this bursting snow-blue radiance that almost illuminated the entire temple, the entire sacred mountain, the entire Snowy Domain, cradling this bundle of utterly ordinary blue kingfisher flowers found everywhere at the foot of the sacred mountain, he seemed to finally release some difficult-to-release bonds, or as if he was finally about to rush toward some destiny. With an extremely peaceful posture, he fell backward toward the vast, broad Sacred Lake behind him!

“Boom!”

Surging waves, deafening!

Though clearly a body too small to be worth mentioning, when it crashed down it actually splashed up sky-high waves!

Endless snow-waves crashed toward the shore, yet froze into countless floating ice the moment they splashed down!

The blue kingfisher flowers with wings spread as if to fly floated in the turbulent wave-light.

At the center of the Sacred Lake’s bottom, that pair of mournful and desolate eyes finally revealed an indescribable bleakness at this moment. That existence, whether female demon or deity, extended her water-like arms toward the youth who had fallen into the lake water, gathering him into her gentle embrace…

The scene was undoubtedly beautiful to the extreme.

Yet in this instant, what surged in Jian Chou’s mind was only Jiye’s sudden “Are you ready?” from moments before, only the sudden, terrifying crisis!

Almost without thinking, the Randeng Sword was already unsheathed!

“Clang!”

The sword’s edge pointed not at the Sacred Lake, nor at Jiye, but at the true opponent behind her who had just reached the lakeside, completely unaware of what had happened and with no time to react—

Mid-stage Void Refining, the Precious Vase Dharma King!