Ze Tian Ji

Edited by: Michyrr

A few days ago, Xu Yourong had said that if one wanted to know the circumstances of the Mausoleum of Books, they could ask someone. Even if the Divine Empress was not willing to say, there was definitely someone else that knew. Since it involved the Mausoleum of Books, who could know more than this man before them? This man had already sat guard within the Mausoleum of Books for several centuries.

She and Chen Changsheng crossed over the limpid canals. Arriving in front of the pavilion, they bowed to the person underneath.

There were already very few people in the world that necessitated her and Chen Changsheng to bow at the same time, but in the end, the person under the pavilion was quite unique.

The number one Divine General of the continent, Han Qing. His seniority was extremely high, his age extremely old, and his cultivation extremely profound. Many years ago, he was already infinitely close to the Divine Domain, and on the battlefield, he was unmatched, the sole person currently in the world that could be discussed on equal terms with those legendary Divine Generals of the past. The likes of Xu Shiji and Xue He were not even worthy of being compared and not even the Storms of the Eight Directions dared say that they could win easily against him.

What made people revere him and emotionally sigh the most was that this general had guarded the Mausoleum of Books for several hundred years and had never once left. It seemed he was going to sit there until his life came to an end.

"Greetings to Sir, I am Xu Yourong. Under the orders of my teacher, I have come before Senior to ask for Senior’s guidance on a few questions."

Xu Yourong softly said as she gazed at the man in the armor.

Because his eyes were obscured, it was impossible to be sure if the man within the armor had opened his eyes or not, but Chen Changsheng could clearly see that some of the dust in the cracks in the armor had suddenly flown out, dancing under the sunlight like countless tiny moths. At the same time, he sensed a gaze like a metal spear falling upon his and Xu Yourong’s body.

"Who is your teacher?"

An elderly voice emerged from the depths of the armor. It seemed speckled with rust and weathered by the trials of time.

Xu Yourong replied, "I come from South Stream Temple."

South Stream Temple was divided into an outer sect and inner sect, but only the current Holy Maiden or her direct successor could travel the world under the name of South Stream Temple.

The rays of the winter sun fell upon the armor, but rather than making it warmer, it seemed to make it even more chilly, just like the voice coming from the armor.

"Why does she not come herself?"

"My teacher said, at the time, Senior could not answer her question, and now Senior would similarly be unable to answer her questions, so she left the opportunity to me."

"Then ask away."

"In the Mausoleum of Books, just how many of the Heavenly Tome Monoliths were stolen away?"

Xu Yourong’s gaze, calm and warm, saw through the flying dust and rays of winter light and fell upon the Divine General’s armor.

But her question was direct and piercingly cold, like the Divine Path on the south face of the Mausoleum of Books, directly piercing towards the heavens.

Chen Changsheng glanced at her, thinking, Divine General Han Qing has guarded the Mausoleum of Books for several centuries, and what he guards is its Divine Path and its secrets. That there are many Heavenly Tome Monoliths no longer in the Mausoleum of Books but lost in the outside worlds is definitely one of the Mausoleum of Books’ greatest secrets; how could he respond to your question?

Surprisingly, in the next moment, the old and chilly voice rang out from the armor.

"Twelve monoliths."

Chen Changsheng was rather shocked at this answer, first because Divine General Han Qing had actually answered the question, second because of the answer itself.

He and Xu Yourong glanced at each other and saw the astonishment in each other’s eyes—there were twelve monoliths lost outside?

"All of them were taken away by that person?" Xu Yourong asked the man under the pavilion.

"Eleven monoliths."

"Then what of the other one?"

"Emperor Taizu removed it."

Hearing this, Chen Changsheng remembered the notebook Wang Zhice had hidden in Lingyan Pavilion.

In the notebook, Wang Zhice had once mentioned that in his later years, when Taizu was imprisoned in the palace, Emperor Taizu enjoyed indulging in women and music. In the end, he had given Wang Zhice a certain item...

"Zhou Dufu took away the Heavenly Tome Monoliths, resulting in the front mausoleum coming into use?"

"Correct, thus the present Mausoleum of Books is actually thirteen mausoleums."

One broken monolith served as a boundary marker, twelve monoliths naturally became thirteen mausoleums; this was no particularly challenging math problem.

"Those Heavenly Tome Monoliths...where are they now?"

Xu Yourong finally asked the most important question.

Before coming to this pavilion, she and Chen Changsheng both believed that all the Heavenly Tome Monoliths were in their hands, but now they realized that this was certainly not the case.

"Where that person took those Heavenly Tome Monoliths he stole away, nobody knows."

Upon hearing the voice from the armor, Chen Changsheng lowered his head in silence, thinking, I actually do know.

"But one Heavenly Tome Monolith...is probably in the hands of the Demon Lord."

At this statement, Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong were finally stunned.

The mountain mausoleum was deathly still. The limpid waters slowly flowing through the canal also did not make much noise.

"For what reason did they steal away so many Heavenly Tome Monoliths?"

"First of all, this already surpasses the scope of what I promised to South Stream Temple. Secondly, if I knew, why would I have sat here for so many centuries?"

After these words, no more sound issued forth.

The winter winds howled through and outside the pavilion, carrying along the dust on the armor and sending into disarray the cold and clear light. The Divine General seemed to once more transform into a sculpture.

They left the pavilion and returned to Xun Mei’s little yard. There, Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong silently gazed at those plum blossoms beyond the fence for a few moments.

"At the very beginning, the Mausoleum of Zhou was surrounded by eleven Heavenly Tome Monoliths in total. If the Heavenly Tome Monolith Wang Zhice obtained from Emperor Taizu was not originally part of these eleven, then this also means that our initial guess was wrong. The person that entered the Garden of Zhou and took away that Heavenly Tome Monolith, forcing Zhou Dufu to use ten thousand swords to suppress the rest, was not Wang Zhice, but the Demon Lord."

"That Heavenly Tome Monolith still remains in the Demon Lord’s hands while the other eleven are with us."

Xu Yourong turned around to look at him, saying quietly, "There’s no need to worry too much."

Besides Chen Changsheng, she was the only person in the world that had seen those ten Heavenly Tome Monoliths surrounding the Mausoleum of Zhou as well as the black stone that Chen Changsheng had taken out of his sheath. Since the Garden of Zhou had reopened, Chen Changsheng should have had eleven Heavenly Tome Monoliths, but on that night when he came to her window, he had only taken out ten.

Xu Yourong had never asked the whereabouts of the other Heavenly Tome Monolith. She could roughly guess, and even if she went by Chen Changsheng’s method of splitting evenly, there should only have been ten monoliths between them in the first place. The black stone that Emperor Taizu had secretly given to Wang Zhice which then ended up in Chen Changsheng’s hands had originally been brought into the Garden of Zhou by him and was his own property.

"I am never worried that a world that I don’t even have the strength to enter yet might cause me to lose my way."

Chen Changsheng looked at her and continued, "I’m only worried that because of me, you might bear a pressure that you don’t need to bear."

They had never talked about this problem before.

Xu Yourong was the present Holy Maiden. Ever since she was a child, she was viewed as the future leader of the human world. From the moment she was born, she began to grow accustomed to living a life of responsibility.

Back in the Plains of the Unsetting Sun in that snowy temple, she had once said to him that this sort of life truly was rather tiresome, but she was already used to it. The reappearance of the Heavenly Tome Monoliths was a very important matter to the human world and might even affect the balance of strength between the humans and demons. Given her Dao heart that cherished the world, if this matter had not been related to Chen Changsheng, she would probably have long since announced this fact to the world and then placed those Heavenly Tome Monoliths back into the Mausoleum of Books.

Only on that snowy night when Chen Changsheng handed those five pearls over to her did he finally think of this question.

He did not want her to bear this sort of pressure.

......