The stone forest was vast — each boulder a peculiar and unique shape, no two alike. Some resembled reclining oxen, others crouching tigers, still others coiling phoenixes.

Ahead, there was a small patch of water. It had once been a lake but had nearly dried up entirely. Could this be the Immortal Ascension Pool? Ye Fan wasn’t certain — it didn’t quite seem possible. How could an immortal pool run dry?

Shakyamuni’s imprint was clear and distinct — a face of compassion and solemn dignity, with the bearing of a great sage of wisdom, exuding an aura of benevolent grace.

“Some say he is the World-Honored One, others say he is not. The traitor may be connected to him — and there are those who say he is the demonic shell of the Buddha…”

He recalled the words of the little white-robed nun. Shakyamuni held a most unusual identity in this world, and the reasons were complex — something he had yet to fully understand.

On Earth, when speaking of Buddhism, one invariably spoke of Shakyamuni. Yet here, the situation was deeply ironic. The very founder had become a traitor — even a demon standing in opposition.

“One of the elders of our Ji Family, over a thousand years ago, met one of Shakyamuni’s ten great disciples — the Buddhist heir had just returned from across the sea.” Ji Ziyue murmured quietly.

Beyond the Five Great Regions lay an endless ocean, and within it, islands scattered like stars. Some said that within those vast waters there were divine islands, hiding peerless masters — even ancient emperors who had passed away in meditation, their names never heard of before.

Others said that in the ocean, far vaster than the Five Great Regions, there might be immortal islands, where divine beings had come into existence.

The main reason was that the sea beyond was simply too immense — boundless and without edge, far more expansive than the Five Great Regions as they stood today. No one had ever crossed the ocean to its end. People regarded it with deep awe and reverence.

“One of Shakyamuni’s ten great disciples, returning from across the sea…” Something stirred in Ye Fan’s heart. He thought of An Miaoyi’s words — wasn’t this exactly what she had said when she gave him the essence of the Nirvana Scripture?

“What was that person’s cultivation like?” Pang Bo asked.

“Immeasurable and unfathomable. At the time, one of our Supreme Elders stood before him and could not see through his depth at all — it was like facing a boundless abyss.” Ji Ziyue said. This was something she had only recently learned.

“The great Shakyamuni — known as the Buddha Patriarch in another world — yet here he is branded a great traitor. What a bitter irony.” Pang Bo shook his head.

Ye Fan reflected on this, thinking of the Buddhism of his homeland. Though it was said to have been founded by Shakyamuni, Buddhist practitioners had existed long before him — one might say he did not so much create it as greatly expand and illuminate it.

In certain ancient scriptures, it was recorded that when Shakyamuni traveled and witnessed Buddhist practitioners harming their bodies in ascetic practice, he judged this not to be the true path. From that realization, the Dharma of the Thus-Come-One was born.

Ye Fan gradually formed a bold conjecture. Earth had a lost span of history. Setting aside the most mysterious ancient China, even ancient India had a remarkable past.

If Buddhism had predated Shakyamuni — existing before him — might there have been an even earlier Buddhist sage of great wisdom who had, through the stellar gates left by the ancients, first crossed to the other shore?

If so, there was so much more to imagine — so many veils of mystery, each corner beginning to lift.

In that instant, Ye Fan’s thoughts turned to the word “other shore.” In Buddhism, this was an extraordinary term.

“Earth truly lost a span of history — an age that was wiped from memory. Perhaps that era was immeasurably long, not something as simple as a few thousand years.”

Of course, there was another possibility: that people from this world had once traveled along the ancient stellar road to Earth, founded Buddhism there, and Shakyamuni in a later age had traced the origins back to this place.

Ye Fan’s thoughts multiplied. The ancient stellar road, reaching across boundless distances, was surely not built by people from just one or two ancient stars — it spanned many stellar regions. Where had the ancients’ road been leading?

“Look here — the imprints he left behind are quite deliberate. They are composed of barely visible, strange and minute characters.” Li Heishui said.

Everyone gathered around, all inwardly astonished. The many tiny characters were densely packed — even activating one’s divine sight made them difficult to discern; they were simply too minuscule. Together, they combined to form a human figure.

“It’s Sanskrit!” Pang Bo said. He and Ye Fan looked at each other — this was the script of ancient India, and neither of them could recognize a single character.

“That explains it. He left imprints on the Sacred Cliff as well, and here too there is Sanskrit — a record in written characters, left for those who come after.” Ye Fan said, deep in thought.

Last time, he had been too careless and had not examined the imprint on the Sacred Cliff closely enough — yet it too had been composed of countless tiny characters. This was clearly meant to be read by those who came from ancient India.

“Did they anticipate that people in later ages would follow in their footsteps? They left directions — but where have they gone now?”

Ye Fan and Pang Bo crouched there together, eyes wide, hearts scratching with desperate curiosity. These were characters left behind by the Thus-Come-One himself — most likely containing the secrets of the stellar cosmos — yet neither of them could read a single word.

“Why did it have to be Sanskrit?!” Both of them were at a loss for words, left only to cry out at the heavens.

In that distant past, Earth had produced not just one Buddha. At the very least, within the same generation, there had been another ancient being of supreme wisdom.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, in ancient China, a hundred schools of thought contended and the great sages emerged in succession — each one dazzling beyond measure, every name resounding through the ages, leaving marks upon the sky of history that could never be erased.

Setting aside all others, Laozi alone could stand as a match for the Buddha. Shakyamuni was a divine being — possessed of great supernatural power and supreme wisdom. There was no question that Laozi, endowed with the same great wisdom, was likewise such a being — both human and divine at once.

They rose quickly and, with urgent steps, moved to stand before the second imprint: an elder riding a green ox, departing leisurely westward — perfectly composed, utterly serene, in perfect harmony with the principle of non-action.

Sure enough, it too was composed of tiny inscribed characters — gathered together to form this image of a sage borne westward on a green ox, likewise left as guidance and explanation for those who would come after.

These two ancient sages would surely not have left random imprints without purpose. Most likely they had known more would follow in their wake, and so had recorded the roads they had walked.

“Quick — let’s see what they wrote.” Pang Bo urged. He couldn’t recognize a single character.

Ye Fan, though he had some knowledge of ancient Chinese script, found himself frowning deeply. Some characters were in the Bronze Inscriptions style, and a portion were actually in Oracle Bone Script.

Even setting aside his own limitations — even the most devoted scholars of ancient script on Earth could not read every character of these two writing systems in full; neither had been completely deciphered there.

“Departed westward through the Hangu Pass…” He managed to make out only this one continuous phrase. Beyond that, a few isolated characters and words emerged from the gaps — “Great Emperor,” “Ancient Road,” “Region,” “Immortal,” “Purple Tenuity Ancient Star,” “Hook-Chen” — but they were all disconnected, broken apart from one another.

“This old man is simply on another level entirely. He departed westward through the Hangu Pass and somehow ended up venturing into the stellar regions.” Pang Bo was thoroughly stunned.

In the ancient texts it was recorded: “When Laozi journeyed westward, the gate-keeper Yin Xi beheld purple qi floating above the pass — and indeed, Laozi arrived riding a green ox.”

Laozi’s last known appearance in ancient China was at the Hangu Pass: the purple qi came from the east, he left behind his five-thousand-word Tao Te Ching as recorded by Yin Xi — and from that moment forward, he was never seen again in the world of men.

Ye Fan too fell into a long sigh. On the other side of the starry cosmos, he had never thought about Laozi in this way — only ever seeing him as an ancient man of great wisdom. Now, he could not help but acknowledge it: Laozi had been a cultivator, one who had entered the starry cosmos and crossed to the other shore.

Shakyamuni and Laozi had lived in nearly the same age — both figures of two thousand five hundred years ago. Was this a coincidence?

“They followed the stellar gates left behind by the ancients and walked toward the stars…” Ye Fan murmured.

More than two thousand years ago, the great sages of Earth emerged one after another — nearly all within the same era, with no great difference in time between them. Was this mere coincidence, or was there some deeper pattern at work?

This world had Buddhism — but not the Buddhism of Shakyamuni. That worshippers here revered Amitabha was something that could still be understood, for that teaching existed on Earth as well.

And yet this world also had Daoism — but not the Daoism of Laozi. Its origins were nearly impossible to trace.

“Who founded Daoism?” Ye Fan couldn’t help but ask.

“It’s far too complex. The great Daoist masters have always been like drifting clouds and wild cranes — they left behind teachings and esoteric arts, but unlike Buddhism, they never formed a unified whole. It’s scattered and loose, with no clear source to be found.” Ji Haoyue shook his head.

Regarding Daoism — not just in this world, but even on the other side of the stellar cosmos — it was difficult to say with certainty when it had begun.

To speak of Daoism, one inevitably spoke of the teachings attributed to the Yellow Emperor and Laozi. And to speak of the Yellow Emperor was to push the timeline back even further.

Laozi was a figure of two thousand five hundred years ago; the “Yellow Emperor” in those attributed teachings was a figure from four thousand — nearly five thousand — years ago.

The Daoism named by later generations could in truth be traced back infinitely. Within the long river of history, its beginning was nearly impossible to find.

Laozi had left very few traces in this world. If he had traveled onward along the ancient stellar road, where had he gone?

The stellar gates left behind by the ancients led toward some boundlessly distant and unknown destination. Where did they end? Ye Fan did not know — though at the very least, he felt this world was not the final stop. There were more ancient stars ahead.

Within the ancient bronze coffin, there had been an engraved image. He and Pang Bo had both seen it with their own eyes: a magnificent starry sky, in which Earth and the Northern Dipper were only one small corner — and before them lay a far more expansive road onward.

“Two thousand five hundred years ago, the great sages emerged in a great flourishing — an age of extraordinary brilliance…” Ye Fan murmured within his heart.

Since Laozi and the Buddha were both near-divine in nature, how could the other dazzlingly brilliant figures of that same era have been ordinary mortals?

But what a pity — it had all resembled the final burst of fireworks. After that, the divine beings gradually departed, and though some still appeared, they were fashioned by human will alone.

“Could it be that two thousand five hundred years ago, the last generation of ancient sages on Earth made a decision together — to leave their homeland behind and journey onward along the ancient stellar road?”

In ancient China, the cosmic map of Purple Tenuity, the Four Symbols, the Twenty-Eight Stellar Regions and so forth formed a vast celestial chart. Had the ancient stellar road blazed by the ancients passed through each of these in turn? And where did it ultimately lead?

Far more ancient than Laozi, the seventy-two kings of remote antiquity had performed the Great Sacrifice at Mount Tai. Had they gone even earlier into the stellar regions — had they long since reached the far end of the starry cosmos?

“The people of high antiquity, their years all reaching past a hundred, yet their vitality undiminished…” The “high antiquity” of which the Yellow Emperor had spoken — how many ages ago had that truly been?

To people of today, the Yellow Emperor was already an ancient emperor of four or five thousand years past — counted as high antiquity. Then what kind of era had it been that even he marveled at, calling it “high antiquity”?

How much had ancient China buried — how many forgotten events lay sealed? There might well be a vast and immeasurable ancient history entombed within the years, waiting for the day it would finally be revealed.

Ye Fan fell into deep reflection, his thoughts drifting far and wide in reverie without limit. In this vast stellar cosmos, how many ancient stars harbored life?

Could the star names of ancient China — those constellations and stellar regions — be a form of enlightenment? Could they represent a meaning far more profound and important?

Earth, Mars, the Purple Tenuity Star… one ancient star after another. Where was the origin, and where was the end?

What was the true meaning of this ancient road? Where was it trying to connect — what kind of place did it lead to?

The Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin — was it returning home after falling in battle, or wandering aimlessly without destination?

The Five-Colored Altar, the Nine Dragons crossing the dark and frozen vault of heaven — with no known origin and no road ahead — whom had it been carrying? And would it ever set sail again one day?