Before Purple Mountain, the fat Duan panicked. Without hesitation, he brought out the lid of the Heaven-Devouring Demon Vessel — and then ran for his life.
He had no intention of fighting. He was in full flight, and though he had half an extreme Dao emperor’s weapon in hand, it was after all not whole — and to activate it would certainly drain him dry.
There was nothing heroic or dignified about it. He used the lid of the Heaven-Devouring Demon Vessel as a shield and bolted at full speed.
That sage was skin and bones — flesh and blood long since desiccated — yet the vitality radiating outward was terrifying beyond measure. Clad in a tattered battle robe of some unknown era, the corpse came charging after him.
This was naturally Ye Fan. Having occupied the holy shell and arrived here, the moment he laid eyes on Duan De he wanted to teach him a lesson, and naturally frightened the unscrupulous Daoist out of his wits — the man ran even faster than a rabbit.
After briefly acclimating himself to this body, Ye Fan immediately activated the Circulating Qi technique and gave chase at speed, laughing in a bizarre and unsettling manner.
“Damn it all, a laugh like that is truly bone-chilling…” Duan De’s hair stood on end. He pulled his neck in and rolled like a ball, somehow multiplying his speed several times over.
Ye Fan gave chase. The sparse hair on this shell fluttered loose in the wind, the hollow, sunken eye sockets flickering with an eerie glow — truly resembling a ten-thousand-year-old corpse.
“Hehehe…”
Hearing that laughter, Duan De broke out in goosebumps over his entire body. Seeing a great hand reach out toward his backside, he screamed in terror, transformed into a streak of black light, and plunged straight down into the earth.
Ye Fan activated his Heavenly Eye Penetration and saw that a tunnel led down to a subterranean altar deep underground — the fat coward had been so frightened that he was attempting to cross through the void and flee.
“Hahaha…” Ye Fan roared with laughter.
Duan De stood on the altar, his expression shifting from one shade to another. After a while, he slowly began to work it out — if this truly were a sage intent on killing him, it would most likely have already made a move against the ancient Heaven-Devouring Demon Vessel.
“You bastard!”
Duan De rushed out from the tunnel, glared at Ye Fan for a long while, and raged and cursed at him — nearly lunging forward to fight him then and there.
Having learned the arts of geomancy and cultivated the Yin-Yang Heavenly Eye, he observed and sensed carefully, and recognized in the crown of the sage’s skull the familiar wisp of qi he knew.
After finishing his torrent of curses, Duan De’s gaze turned fervent. “Having a holy shell like this to use — entering Purple Mountain is far more certain.”
After Ye Fan grew accustomed to this sage’s body, he sensed that the dried-out Wheel of Life Sea, the Dao Palace, and other chambers within had all revived a measure of vitality. Even the broken bronze bell and battle spear had flown out, now available for his use.
Yet he heaved another sigh — the physical strength of this body was without question and extraordinarily formidable. He felt as though he could crush sacred weapons with his bare hands. But though the divine power had been partially revived, it could not be fully restored, for the body had been dead for many years. Moreover, the primordial spirit had long since dispersed, leaving no imprint of a sage’s laws or realizations of the Great Dao behind.
This was a sage’s physical shell. With Ye Fan’s primordial spirit occupying it, the body itself was absolutely unrivaled — but to project power as a true sage would, the difficulty was immense. The corresponding inverse-heaven law imprints were absent.
“Those things are born within the primordial spirit, and the imprints have long since been erased by time — otherwise, how could you have entered the holy shell at all? You would have been obliterated the moment you tried. Unless it were the physical body of an ancient great emperor — in that case, even the hairs, even the clipped fingernails, would all be interwoven with unsurpassed great Dao divine principles, with the most fundamental patterns of heaven and earth growing through them,” Duan De said.
Ye Fan asked the unscrupulous Daoist why the Old Blind Man had not yet arrived. Duan De said he had gone to borrow the other half of the Demon Vessel from Tu Tian, the Seventh Outlaw.
The two waited there for several days before the Old Blind Man — more of a charlatan than ever compared to ten-odd years ago — finally appeared before them.
The moment they met, with practiced ease and remarkable dexterity, he stripped a string of Heavenly Demon Spirit Pearls from Duan De’s wrist and slipped them onto his own — not so much as a flush on his face or a skip in his heartbeat.
Duan De jumped up and cursed him for an ungrateful, conscienceless wretch who had repaid his life-saving with theft.
The Old Blind Man countered with a roll of his eyes, claiming it was he who had saved the unscrupulous Daoist’s life. It was Duan De who had broken into an ancient royal clan’s ancient mausoleum and roused a projection of an ancestral sovereign to come charging out in pursuit.
Not a single good bird among them — such was Ye Fan’s honest assessment. Neither of these two was worth a thing, and they were birds of a feather.
The Old Blind Man’s cultivation was genuinely fearsome now — Ye Fan found it rather difficult to see through. Based on his estimate, someone who had been on the same level as the Red Dragon Daoist back then, with the world having changed again, would now count as a sovereign.
“If we go in, setting aside everything else — what if we disturb the ancient royal clans inside?” Ye Fan asked.
“Relax. Every last one of them cleared out long ago. When the Beginningless Bell’s wave rang out, all the ancient sovereign kings here were driven right out the door,” Duan De said, and went on to share certain secrets known to few.
In those days, when the Beginningless Great Emperor took up residence in Purple Mountain, he confined all the guardian creatures of the nine dragon veins within the Ancient Emperor’s Mountain, leaving them a portion of territory to serve as gatekeepers.
“Calling them gatekeepers is a generous way of putting it — the truth is he forcibly imprisoned them here to serve as doormen,” the Old Blind Man said.
When the bell last rang out with full force, all the ancient clan members were shaken free of the mountain and could no longer remain within. Purple Mountain was now nearly empty.
“Let’s go then — what are we waiting for? Word has it there is an Immortal Phoenix Medicine Plant growing inside. Even just catching a whiff of its fragrance would be worth it,” Duan De said, unable to contain his eagerness.
“You little grave-robbing thief, you’ve been staking out this place for more than ten years. I always knew nothing good was brewing — you even dared enter the mausoleum of an ancient royal clan, and today you’ve finally run out of patience and are going after an ancient great emperor’s tomb,” the Old Blind Man said.
“Damn it all, I am a great archaeologist! Everything is solely for the restoration of history and the witnessing of miracles — do not lump my lofty ideals together with your petty charlatan mentality.”
“Dog dung!” the Old Blind Man replied with crisp conciseness.
“Stop quarreling. Shall we force our way in, or do we search for a passage?” Ye Fan asked.
Duan De said: “Every great tomb is a magnificent work of art. To force the door open is to commit a crime and to trample history — it makes one a criminal for the ages. We must walk in with dignity, and approach the experience with a lofty state of mind, as connoisseurs.”
“Scram!” The Old Blind Man slapped him on the back of the head, then casually tossed a pile of tortoise shells on the ground and began seeking an auspicious hexagram.
In the end, he pointed to one of the dragon veins, declaring it the Gate of Life, with an auspicious and propitious hexagram.
Ye Fan looked and laughed — it was the very path he had once taken. But as they made their way along the underground ancient vein and reached the depths, none of them were laughing anymore.
Deep within, the primordially formed yin-yang diagram had transformed into a state of chaos, becoming a single point of Dao — enough to make hearts seize with dread, involuntarily trembling.
Ye Fan was deeply moved. Yin and yang had reversed and converged into the Limitless — this was the Primordial Dao’s origin, the Prior-Heaven beginning. This was a terrifying transformation of the Dao!
There was absolutely no entering this place now. To force one’s way through would most likely mean being subsumed into the Limitless, dissolving into a law in that very instant, one’s very self dissipating into the fabric of heaven and earth.
“So this is your hexagram — a complete charlatan, nowhere near the level of my burial geomancy.” The group retreated, and Duan De nagged.
“People make mistakes; horses stumble. That was once the safest passage — but after the young Ye Fan walked through it once, it became instead the most treacherous ground of all.”
The Old Blind Man then conducted a succession of deductions, the tortoise shells clicking and clattering against the ground as they rolled to and fro. His expression was grave as he went on to eliminate five more dragon veins in turn — each verified on site, and each confirmed to be a dead end, passages that had been traveled before and had become impassable barriers.
Three remained. He deduced each one in turn and found all three could be traversed. In the end, they chose the one with the slightly more favorable hexagram and pressed forward.
“Have we arrived in the cosmic starry sky? Why does this look like a star domain?” Duan De began muttering.
This dragon vein was difficult to traverse. They broke through countless array patterns and fought through one deadly hazard after another before arduously reaching the end of the passage.
Before them was a brilliant starry sky. To step forward into it would lead one astray with no way of passing through.
“A true star domain…” Even Ye Fan was somewhat bewildered. This path was far too mysterious.
He could not help but think of the secret history of Laozi departing west through the Hangu Pass — how opening the western gate of the pass connected to a star domain that led onto the ancient star-road through the cosmos.
Could it be that this dragon vein was the same — that at its end, one could enter a star domain and set out into the cosmos?
“This is not a true star domain, yet it is not far from one — this is most likely a miniature star domain refined by the Beginningless Great Emperor,” the Old Blind Man said.
Ye Fan was dumbfounded. How were they to get past this? With a star domain in the way, how many years of flying would it take? They would likely sit and die of old age before ever reaching the other end.
“It is not a true star domain — there must be a weak point that can be found. Since the Beginningless Great Emperor left passages through the earlier dragon veins, there must be a way through this one as well,” the Old Blind Man said.
Duan De said: “There’s no certainty this was left by Beginningless — it’s entirely possible the old ghost of the Undying Heavenly Emperor refined it, given that this was originally his burial mound.”
“That’s not out of the question. But as long as it isn’t a true star domain, there is a way,” the Old Blind Man said, and began deducing with the tortoise shells.
And so they set out again on yet another arduous journey, pressing forward at the risk of their lives.
Through one night, the Old Blind Man tore out a whole carpet of hair from his own head before at last working out a method — by finding spatial nodes, he believed there must be a path of life somewhere within.
Several days later, they were lost inside the terrifying star domain, directionless, with all sense of spatial orientation utterly gone.
Without warning, a black void appeared out of nowhere and swallowed all of them whole.
Boom!
In that instant, the holy shell Ye Fan had occupied revealed its terrifying side — one punch shattered the void, and with that force carried several people flying free.
“Wait — that black void is the key. Pass through it, and you’ve crossed through the star domain!” the Old Blind Man suddenly cried out.
“Then what are we waiting for? Bring out the Heaven-Devouring Demon Vessel and pass through it,” Duan De said.
“No good — if we activate an extreme Dao emperor’s weapon right now, it would most likely set off the Beginningless Bell, and everything here would likely be shattered. Our odds of survival would be very poor,” the Old Blind Man shook his head, then fixed his gaze on Ye Fan.
“All right. If you trust me, let me try,” Ye Fan said.
A stellar black void — what was it? It devoured all things and destroyed all things. It was likely only a sage’s physical body that could withstand such force; anyone else would be completely incapable of bearing it.
Ye Fan gathered the others inside his body, then drew a deep breath and transformed into a beam of light, his golden blood qi blazing toward the sky and illuminating the entire miniature star domain.
Boom!
He plunged into the black void, and after an interval impossible to measure, emerged inside the belly of a purple mountain.
The light was somewhat dim. Jade-crafted palace halls and towers, all coated in a layer of dust, ancient and without luster. Ancient passages and ancient caves led away in all four directions.
They had successfully entered the interior of Purple Mountain. Duan De leapt high in the air, ecstatic, rubbing his hands together with glee: “Those of us in our profession have long wrestled with one great question — how to crack open an ancient great emperor’s tomb. Above all, the Beginningless Tomb. I am the first archaeologist to have entered this place.”
“Have we come directly to the very deepest part — to the spot where the Beginningless Great Emperor passed away in seated meditation?” The Old Blind Man felt deeply ill at ease, his eyes fixed on a lofty platform rising behind the jade palaces and towers.
At his words, both Ye Fan and Duan De looked into the depths — and instantly the hair on their bodies stood on end.
A Dao platform rose there, of immense scale and grandeur, wreathed in many wisps of mist that swirled around it in mystery and dread. Faintly visible within was a towering figure seated in meditation, and from it emanated an aura that filled the heart with a trembling, bone-deep unease.