Wet viviparity

Chapter 828 Old Friend, Obscure Tomorrow
In the northeast of the Immortal Mountain in the East Sea, outside the Ghost Gate formed by drooping peach branches, the two gatekeepers were snoring loudly, their voices deafening, completely unaware that a figure from the mortal world had quietly entered the gate.

"Dim and silent, obscure and dark."

For countless years, the light of stars has been unseen; for millennia, the reflection of the moon in the water has been unseen.

Without knowing ups and downs, one cannot distinguish east from west.

A desolate, empty void, a post station between the realms of Yin and Yang.

Where the fox spirit arrives, it is a place frequented by ghosts and spirits.

"To turn one's eyes away is like being blind; to stretch out one's fingers is like stretching out one's palm. It is often like a long, dark night, yet dawn arrives only when all is slow."

Beyond the Ghost Gate lies the Yin-Yang Line leading to Haoli.

Zhang Xiaoyuan's brocade robe fluttered slightly, and his jade belt jingled softly as he arrived here directly in his physical body.

At this moment, his physical body descended straight down. There was no light, no dust, no heaven and earth, and no earth, fire, water, or wind. In a short time, he had fallen tens of thousands of miles and was approaching the first of the three passes of Yin and Yang - Evil Dog Ridge.

Before him, dark, gloomy mountains were already visible, from which a chilling wind howled and swirled, causing the gleaming scales of his armor beneath his robes to shimmer faintly.

Zhang Xiaoyuan pressed down a dark cloud beneath his feet, landing on a strange and treacherous place. He knew that upon reaching this place, the mortal world ended and the yin energy flourished.

He stepped forward, and the mountain ranges swept past him like crouching beasts, while the jagged rocks on either side resembled fangs ready to devour him. As he walked along, not a blade of grass grew on these mountains; only white bones lay half-buried in the earth, a stark and jarring sight.

A mournful wind whistled out from the earth's opening, swirling and lingering, its sound like the distant barking of a pack of dogs, shrill and intermittent. This sound evoked unpleasant memories for Zhang Xiaoyuan, not of this life, but of the past, of the "Zhang Su·Zhang Yuelu" incident.

"Stop whoever comes!"

A black dog with copper teeth chased after Zhang Xiaoyuan, calling out.

The black dog barked wildly and asked, "Who dares to trespass through the Three Gates of Hell?"

Zhang Xiaoyuan ignored it, spread his arms, and walked with ease, as if strolling in a garden. He easily shook off the black dog. Unexpectedly, the next moment, thousands of barks rose up in the winding mountain road, accompanied by the sound of claws scraping against the rock walls.

"Since you are a mortal and have mistakenly entered this place, please leave immediately. This priest will pretend I have never seen you before." The black dog caught up and transformed into a dog-headed human, holding an iron whip.

"What a joke! Which celestial official do you think you are?"

"you"

Zhang Xiaoyuan, dressed in a brocade robe and embroidered tunic, with bright scale armor underneath and a jade belt around his waist, stood out prominently in this gloomy ghost realm. He said to the dog-headed priest, "Do you think I don't know your background? You are just a person from the Dog Sealing Kingdom who was transformed into a dog in the Evil Dog Ridge after death."

"You rely on the lingering power of that dead dog, still dreaming of one day rising again and reviving the Dog Kingdom."

"Since you know such old things, you must be extraordinary. Our kingdoms of Dog-Feng, Feather-People, Hair-People, and Great Man have only been in decline for tens of thousands of years. Who knows if fate will change in the future and allow us to return to our former status?"

To prepare for the future, one must naturally build up a solid foundation.

"Evil Dog Ridge is the burial place of our ancestors and also the location of a Taoist temple. We reside here, performing acts of virtuous conduct with the spirits and deities who come and go; this cannot be considered usurping a sacred place."

"Nobody wants to get involved in your affairs."

As Zhang Xiaoyuan spoke, the jade bamboo bow at his waist silently slipped into his palm.

"This bow... how did this bow end up in your hands?" The dog-headed priest was horrified, and the barking of the dogs in the ridge immediately fell silent.

With the bow revealed, Zhang Xiaoyuan did not wish to say much. He was no longer the Zhang Xiaoyuan of the past, the pure pride of Taiping Mountain. The latent potential and wisdom of the old Heavenly Demon had returned to him.

"Quickly, go to Golden Rooster Mountain and summon the Pleiades Star Lord."

The priest urged one of the greyhounds urgently.

When Zhang Xiaoyuan reached the heart of the mountain range, the terrain suddenly dropped, forming a huge deep valley.

In the center of this valley, a colossal, ferocious creature sat there, its shape resembling a dejected old dog, larger than a hill, its fur tangled and stained like splashed ink, interspersed with dark red spots. However, it had no life force left, and no one knew how many years it had been dead.

Even in death, the old dog still stirred and reacted. When Zhang Xiaoyuan arrived, the old dog suddenly raised its head, revealing its blood-stained and mangled face, and let out a fierce howl like thunder from its throat.

As the barking reached, a black wind suddenly rose in the valley, whipping up a sky full of bone dust and sand, which transformed into hundreds of vicious dog phantoms, baring their teeth and roaring as they pounced on Zhang Xiaoyuan.

Just as the foul wind swept over his face, and Zhang Xiaoyuan was about to extinguish the dog-like figures before him, a large patch of clear light descended and spread throughout the valley, suppressing all the hundreds of illusory dog-like figures. The old dog god's corpse, which had just begun to stir, returned to calm.

"It's been a long time since we last met."

In the clear sunlight, the golden rooster spoke.

Zhang Xiaoyuan raised an eyebrow slightly. Sure enough, he had met the "old friend" he least wanted to see here. The words he had prepared in his heart were stuck between his throat and he could not utter them.

Jinji said, "I never expected you to walk this path too."

"I waited from the Yuanhuang era to the Tianhuang era, then to the first humane dynasty, Tianzhou, and finally to the Great Xia Dynasty. Now, I can't wait any longer. Is there any other way now?"

Perhaps back in the time of Emperor Xi, I should have followed your example and submitted to that auspicious emperor. At least then my spirit could have remained intact, avoiding the need for reincarnation. Now, I can hardly even discern whether I am still myself.

As he spoke, Zhang Xiaoyuan held a bullet between his fingers, gently placed it on the bowstring pouch, and aimed it at the old dog god's corpse.

"Perhaps I should have followed your example, my close friend Lou Jingou, and stood against the immortals of heaven even knowing I was going to die. I should have resolutely fought my way up to heaven and confronted the Azure Emperor head-on. Even if I had become a heartless and mindless demon of the underworld, it would have been a worthwhile life."

The golden rooster remained indifferent for a moment, then said, "We haven't seen each other for tens of thousands of years, and you want to say these things as soon as we meet?! Were you involved in the collapse of the southwestern Milky Way back then?"

"What do you think?"

"Back then, three of the seven southern constellations were involved, which led Heaven to disregard the dignity of the three heavens being equal and to impose extreme punishment on those three."

"In this great calamity in the Southern Heaven, some old stories and people from the past will likely be unearthed again. If this alarms the heavens, under the cruel will of Heaven, no one knows whether you old demonic beings will be implicated."

“I have already been reincarnated. There is no Zhang Su, only Zhang Xiaoyuan.”

Having said that, he drew his bow to its fullest extent.

"Go!"

The bullet left the bowstring, arcing through the air, piercing the sunlight, and striking the old dog god's corpse.

Pleiades Star Lord did not stop Zhang Xiaoyuan's actions. He naturally knew Zhang Xiaoyuan's purpose in coming here, and even that Zhang Xiaoyuan's ability to get here so easily was due to his involvement and secret assistance.

The old dog god's corpse, which had been beaten, suddenly shrank back as if in fear, transforming into a disheveled, filthy streak of blood and fleeing upwards.

A glint flashed in Zhang Xiaoyuan's eyes, his brocade robe fluttering in the wind. He took a step forward, following closely behind the fleeing trail of filthy blood.

Two beams of light, one in front and one behind, one filthy and one bright, shot out like shooting stars, breaking through the layers of gloomy winds on Evil Dog Ridge, pointing directly at the boundary separating Yin and Yang.

The old dog god corpse was the first to crash into the mortal world. As soon as it entered the world, it arrived at the gale layer tens of thousands of miles away. The wind was fierce here, but the old dog god corpse seemed to have a target and chased after the great sun that was casting infinite light and heat.

It suddenly raised its head and let out a silent roar towards the blazing sun above the gale layer.

The sun still hung high in the sky, radiating boundless light, but its cascading light and heat were inexplicably reversed before reaching the mountains and rivers below.

In an instant, the bright and clear sky over thousands of miles in a certain area of ​​southern China suddenly lost its color.

Although the light of day was still present for thousands of miles, it was dim and gloomy, with the outlines of all things blurred and all colors lost, as if this mortal world had been dragged into a long and strange murky realm. This was exactly the image of darkness and light that Master Lingxu sought.

Zhang Xiaoyuan hovered amidst the turbulent winds, his brocade robe billowing in the air.

He lowered his eyes and looked down, straining his vision. He saw a tiny, yet incredibly pure, precious light quietly illuminating the dim and gloomy world below, faint yet firm, like the first star in the long night.

That was the spiritual inspiration for refining treasures belonging to his cousin Zhang. It had been successfully brought to light in this mysterious time of alternating darkness and light, and the turbulence of yin and yang. Now, he had repaid the favor he owed to his cousin Zhang.

(End of this chapter)