Chapter 294 – If Life Could Be Like the Moment When We First Met (Part Seven) (2/2)

This signified that he was about to enter hibernation.

The method the Black Dragon used to save him was exactly that—hibernation.

Hibernation was sleep.

Right now, what he required most was sleep, to sleep for a long time, to sleep until the sky and earth went dark, until the end of time.

But he could not sleep.

Because she was still asleep, so he must stay awake.

This feeling was extremely painful.

Wanting to sleep, but being unable to; how beautiful was this sight? It served as the most effective of punishments. One could imagine how unbearable it was. In order to prevent his heavy eyelids from closing, Chen Changsheng made all sorts of efforts and attempts. He slapped his face, washed his face, and even attempted to gather his spirit. At the end, only when his spiritual sense rested on the black stone did he instantly and truly wake up.

The black stone was placed together with Wang Zhice's notebook in a very remote corner of his little world. If not carefully searched for, it was very easy to miss. Perhaps because of this reason, or perhaps because even at the point of death, he instinctively felt it was too precious. Yesterday, he had not thrown out this black stone and the notebook along with the rest of the items in his bid to escape from the entrapment of those two wings of light.

When he journeyed from Xining village to the capital, returning the marriage contract had never been very important. For him, what was important was the Grand Examination, because only through the examination would he be allowed to meditate in the Pavilion of Ascending Mist for one night. For this reason, he had put forth an unimaginable amount of time and effort, eventually reaching that seemingly inconceivable goal. In comparison to the price he had paid, his gains from the Pavilion of Ascending Mist were rather pitiful. He had not directly found the secret to defy the heavens and change fate. All he had gotten was the black stone and the notebook.

So of course he would place great importance on this black stone and notebook, as he hoped that he would obtain even more things from them. In fact, this seemed to be the case. In the Mausoleum of Books on that night when he was viewing the monoliths, they floated in his sea of consciousness, and yet, no matter how he moved them around, they had been unable to form that piece of starry sky. At that time, the black stone played an extremely important role, allowing him to break into the upper level of Ethereal Opening in one move. Then what about the notebook?

The positions are relative. This was the sentence Wang Zhice used to open this book, and also the sentence which had left the deepest impression on him.

He gazed at the dense and green foliage of that impenetrable plain, silently comprehending the words. He didn't have any realizations, but he suddenly discovered that yesterday, when he and Zhexiu leapt from that clifftop into that cold pool, they had emerged on the surface of the lake in the end. When he was attempting to escape the pursuit of Nanke's two maids and sank down to the lake bottom, when he had returned to the other side, he had been sent soaring into the night sky in the end… position was relative, and it was also opposite?

Could it be that the world of the Garden of Zhou was not a flat surface, but two opposite surfaces combined together? With that cliff at the uppermost reaches of that river serving as the boundary, those scenic lakes and mountains were one world, while the mountains, rivers, and the plain was another, opposite world. The path between those two worlds, was it that cold pool as well as the pond that was some ten li away from Sunset Valley?

Chen Changsheng silently calculated the extent of this world, but soon after, he thought about why he and Zhexiu had gone over to the world on the other side, and then about how he had come back to the Garden of Zhou's main world… in both cases, it was because of the strand of sword intent. Initially, they had gone in pursuit of the sword intent, but the sword intent was what had brought him out in the end.

Last night in the depths of the lake, just as he was about to die, in that final moment, he had noticed a strange change. How could he forget it?

He lowered his head to look at the metal ball in his hands, lightly stroking it in thought.

With a slight movement of spiritual sense and a dense collection of metal rubbing and crashing sounds, the Yellow Paper Umbrella suddenly appeared in his hands.

After silently giving it some thought, he stood up and then thrust the umbrella forward.

The Yellow Paper Umbrella gave no response.

He turned his body, slowly moving the umbrella through the air and stirring up a light breeze.

When the umbrella pointed at a direction that he guessed to be the southwest, it suddenly stopped.

It was not because he had made the umbrella stop, rather the umbrella did not want to move anymore. The wind on that pile of grass suddenly disappeared without a trace.

A light and yet very clear shaking moved from the canopy to the spine to the handle of the umbrella, and then to his hand, ultimately transmitting over to his heart.

A strand of sword intent had appeared somewhere far away in that direction.

The sword intent was very elusive, just like the sword intent he had sensed at the cold pool yesterday. However, it was much more intense this time, making him instinctively feel reverential towards it.

This sword intent made no sound. It seemed to have been in that place for countless years, but its appearance was in itself a sort of summoning.

Chen Changsheng thought about how this Yellow Paper Umbrella had violently carried him along in its rush last night and mumbled to himself, ”Was this sword intent looking for you?”

After a moment of silence, he looked at the umbrella again and said, ”Or is it...that you're supposed to be used to find that sword intent?”