This was undoubtedly a figure of unparalleled genius, and yet they had come to rest their bones here, unknown to all, dying in bewilderment.

Throughout the ages, it was likely that many cultivators had felt the same ache in their hearts. With no hope of ascending to immortality, many powerful figures had come to their ends in their later years, consumed by doubt and desolation.

Unable to find a way out, Ye Fan fixed on a direction and walked forward. Before long, he discovered another skeleton, lying face-up on the ground, its jaw slightly open — as though in death it had been filled with loneliness.

Here too, blood characters had been left behind. Ye Fan crouched down and carefully read them.

“Ascending to immortality… is so difficult. So difficult. So difficult!” Five characters that spoke volumes of hardship. This person had seemed utterly hopeless at the moment of death.

“There are more characters!” The young woman in purple’s large eyes spotted something beneath that snow-white arm.

Ye Fan gently pushed the bone arm aside. It crumbled to white powder instantly. Beneath it were written a few characters: Celestial Pivot — Yang Yizhen.

“Heavens!” The young woman in purple exclaimed in astonishment, her rosy little mouth opening wide, her face filled with shock. “Celestial Pivot Sacred Ground’s Yang Yizhen — this person is recorded in the ancient history of the Eastern Desolation as a figure of supreme genius who dominated the Eastern Desolation fifteen thousand years ago, nearly without rival. And yet he died here…”

Hearing this, Ye Fan was also deeply shaken. The Celestial Pivot Sacred Ground no longer existed — only one old madman remained.

This enormous bronze hall was indeed a burial ground of paramount powerhouses. In former ages, those supreme figures had been drawn in like moths to a flame, searching for hope of immortality — but in the end, they had died here in desolation.

The third skeleton provoked a cry of shock from the young woman in purple. She was enormously agitated, for though the dark red blood markings were blurred, the characters could still be made out. The deceased was a prominent figure of the Ji Family.

“This is our Ji Family ancestor from nine thousand years ago. Not only is his name recorded in our Ji Family genealogy — the ancient history of the Eastern Desolation bears his name as well. And to think that he…”

Ye Fan continued walking forward. He came across more than thirty more corpses in succession. A small number had left their names behind — and every single one of them was a figure of supreme genius recorded in the ancient histories.

The vast bronze hall was empty and formless, without end. There was no way out to be found. The water from the lake had not flowed in here — this was a self-contained world of its own.

“Ascending to immortality is so difficult…” Ye Fan felt something stir deeply within him. Throughout history, the figures who had stood at the very pinnacle of the Eastern Desolation seemed, in the end, to have had no one who could cross that threshold.

“How did these people die? And if we die here, will we not even leave behind white bones?” The young woman in purple was glum and downcast. She had never once imagined that such a day might come.

“I cannot remain trapped here…” Ye Fan fell into quiet thought, yet could find no solution at all. So many exceptional figures had died in this place — how could he possibly break free from this imprisonment?

Suddenly, the bronze hall began to shake. A tremendous force descended — like the Milky Way falling from the sky, like star domains withering into desolation. The immense pressure gave one a sense of suffocation.

The interior of the bronze hall was filled with haze, and primordial chaos began to churn — like mist, murky and indistinct — rolling toward the two of them and engulfing everything. There was no way to resist its momentum.

This was a fundamental force — like the universe at its very inception, when heaven and earth had just taken form: stars blazing, primordial chaos raging, utterly unstoppable. If the two of them were swallowed by it, they would surely perish.

“I don’t want to die…” The young woman in purple wailed and cried, endlessly reciting the names of several legendary figures said to have ascended to immortality in ages past.

Ye Fan’s heart went completely cold. He had absolutely no means of resistance — it was impossible to withstand the force of primordial chaos. In that moment, countless faces flashed through his mind. In that brief instant, it was as though he had lived an entire lifetime.

Suddenly, Ye Fan’s wheel-sea trembled slightly. The green bronze block — silent and still as a boulder — quivered once, and the surging chaos stalled in an instant.

Then he felt the spring eye at the bottom of his sea go hollow. The ancient bronze block detached itself from the wheel-sea and floated into view before him — without luster, without any surge of energy, plain and unassuming.

“What is that?” The young woman in purple’s eyes went wide, her lashes quivering, an expression of bewilderment on her face.

A towering surge of astonishment rose in Ye Fan’s heart. The green bronze block had actually come out — something that had never happened before. It trembled lightly once before him, and then the surroundings fell calm.

The green bronze block flashed and vanished again, sinking back into the spring eye at the bottom of Ye Fan’s sea. He could not settle his heart. The young woman in purple asked question after question, but he gave no answer.

The bronze hall was silent and dim. Ye Fan and the young woman in purple then discovered in astonishment that they were no longer in their original location. Two doorways had appeared before them.

In this area lay more than ten skeletons. These bones had a crystalline sheen — they had not crumbled to bone powder, which spoke volumes about the extraordinary nature of those they belonged to.

Ye Fan stepped forward and gently tapped them. The white bones rang out with a metallic sound, like gold and stone — these were clearly no ordinary bones, and the ages had not been able to grind them entirely away. Before a few of the skeletons, final words in blood had been left behind. One person’s dying words gave Ye Fan a moment’s pause.

“I carry an immortal heart within me, long locked away by the dust of toil. When will the dust be gone and the light emerge, to illuminate ten thousand blooms across mountains and rivers?”

This was a spirit of great breadth — yet also a helplessness, and a despair. With strength at such a level, this person had undoubtedly shaken past and present alike — yet immortality still lay beyond reach. These few lines spoke volumes of regret and loneliness.

“This person…” The young woman in purple fell into a brief daze, murmuring softly: “Rumor among the world holds that this person may have ascended to immortality. And yet they died here.”

Someone said to have ascended to immortality had in fact perished here. This only deepened one’s doubt — did “immortality” even exist at all?

Ye Fan looked over the more than ten skeletons, his heart filled with infinite feeling. Now he too had his doubts. Throughout this land of the Eastern Desolation, had “immortals” ever truly existed?

Passing the more than ten sets of bones, he arrived before the two doorways. His heart shook. The two doorways were shaped like the yin and yang fish of the Taiji — the doorway on the left was a black yin fish, and the one on the right was a white yang fish. Both had the form of irregular crescent moons.

“These two together form the Taiji!” Ye Fan could not help but be astonished.

Daoism, traditional medicine, traditional culture — from the beams and columns of the Great Accomplishment Hall of the Confucian temple, to the Louguantai, to the Sanmao Palace — the Taiji diagram was known as the first diagram of ancient China, as mysterious as the great cauldron itself.

On the black yin fish doorway, a single powerful and vigorous ancient character had been carved. Its presence bore down on one, with a force that seemed to want to send one flying.

“Death!”

This character could be called deeply ominous — like a curse carved there, with a bloody, chilling quality.

On the white yang fish doorway, drawn with iron hooks and silver strokes, was also only one character: “Life!” Its brushwork was bold and vigorous, its spirit formed naturally, flowing with a tranquil and auspicious presence — the complete opposite of the yin fish doorway.

Now, with no path behind them and only dim, lightless haze, two choices lay ahead. Ye Fan and the young woman in purple could not remain calm — there were only two roads forward.

“There is nothing to deliberate over — we obviously choose the life gate. Who would choose death?” Ji Ziyue wrinkled her delicate nose, her large eyes narrowing into crescent shapes. “You absolutely must not have some kind of strange idea and go choose the death gate. I still want to become an immortal…”

Ye Fan said nothing. He deliberated in silence, then murmured to himself: “Taiji gives birth to two primordial forces; yin and yang arise together. The yang is life; the yin is death.”

Yet in the end, he did not make that choice — for it did not accord with the Dao or with the Taiji. He studied the two doorways of yin and yang carefully. “Yang at its extreme gives rise to yin; yin at its extreme gives rise to yang. Yin and yang are mutually inverse — life and death exchange places.”

He had read many ancient texts, and the principles of illusion and reality, of yin and yang giving birth to one another, appeared in many similar forms. In the end, he pointed toward the death gate and said: “This is the true path to life.”

Ji Ziyue’s little mouth fell open into an “O” shape in shock. “What are you rambling about?”

“The life gate appears tranquil and auspicious, yet it will never lead to a way out. The death gate must hold a twist of fate — finding brightness after having passed through the darkest place, surviving against all odds.”

“Are you certain?” Ji Ziyue blinked her large eyes and stared at him. “You must not be fantasizing wildly — otherwise you will bring about the death of the future immortal, Ji Ziyue. If you do that, you will have accumulated an enormous debt of karma.”

Ye Fan’s heart too was somewhat uncertain. He had based his decision entirely on seeing this split Taiji — yet this was the other shore of the starry sky, not ancient China. His logic might not apply here.

Ji Ziyue wrinkled her charming little nose. “Little brother, do you truly have any confidence in this?”

“Thwack!”

Ye Fan rapped her on the smooth jade-like forehead and said: “Call me older brother. Stop being so disrespectful.”

Ji Ziyue’s eyes filled with tears. She ground her two gleaming little fangs together with a grinding sound, and said indignantly: “Dare to knock me again, and don’t blame me for what comes next. I am a future immortal.”

In the end, Ye Fan chose the death gate and walked forward with wide strides.

“Boom!”

Suddenly, a sound like a tidal wave came crashing — dark light like an abyss poured out of the yin fish doorway and surged straight forward, while white light blazed and penetrated through from the yang fish doorway.

Black and white in opposition — the radiance of life and death mingling and reflecting off each other — yin and yang energies churning, blanketing the heavens and covering the earth, releasing a rumbling sound like a furious ocean rolling its waves, or like thunderclaps reverberating across all nine heavens and ten earths.

The Taiji was taking its initial form, life and death in opposition, yin and yang energies hazily present — a collision of boundless terror that could give birth to all things, or could equally make heaven and earth wither into desolation.

Suddenly, the green bronze block trembled once more and shot forward. It planted itself before the yin-yang doorways — plain and unassuming, yet as immovable as a great mountain — and in an instant, the yin and yang energies vanished entirely.

“What kind of treasure is this, exactly?” Ji Ziyue’s little mouth fell wide open. She was stunned, and her large, lively eyes flashed with an extraordinary light.

Ye Fan made no reply. When the wind and waves had settled, the green bronze block returned into his body, and he continued walking forward with wide strides.

The yin fish doorway — with a bloody, chilling atmosphere like the depths of the underworld — rushed at them head-on. In that moment, he and the young woman in purple simultaneously saw a vast sea of corpses and blood, bones beyond counting in the tens or hundreds of millions. They were like a small boat in a great storm, liable to be capsized at any moment.

Ye Fan was unwavering. He pushed open with force the death gate represented by the black yin fish.

Behind the gate — no forest of murderous intent, no rain of blood. Only a silent, empty path, extending forward into an unknown destination.

“Tap” — “Tap” — “Tap”…

The sound of footsteps echoed through the vast emptiness, as though this were an ancient road no one had walked for tens of thousands of years, still to its utmost.

“Where does this ancient road lead? Can it be that at its end lies the secret of immortality?” Ji Ziyue’s large eyes curved into crescent shapes.

After fully half a shichen had passed, Ye Fan finally arrived at the end. Just ahead — with primordial chaos drifting in haze, yin and yang energies flowing — was a vast, open hall, likewise forged of bronze. On the ground lay a few skeletons whose bones gleamed with brilliant light.

A single enormous character — “Immortal” — was carved into the bronze wall ahead. It carried a quality impossible to put into words, for it had been written in fresh blood, seared into the bronze itself. The blood markings looked as new as the day they were made — not the slightest trace of drying — blazing with brilliant crimson radiance.

Profoundly ominous.

“Immortal” should be of the utmost sanctity — how could blood be used to desecrate it?

And moreover, this “blood” was clearly no ordinary thing. No one could know how many tens of thousands of years had passed. The flesh and blood of every powerhouse had long since turned to ash and smoke; only a rare few paramount figures of their ages had left white bones behind. Yet here, the blood of the character “Immortal” still shimmered a vivid crimson, blazing with light — as though it were still flowing. It was truly beyond imagination.

“Could this be the blood of an immortal?!”