The fake prince was exposed at the beginning, and I took office as emperor on the spot

Chapter 205 The Death of Emperor Yong'an (Part 2)

Gu Fangchen descended through the crack and entered the already dilapidated [Martial Immortal's Tomb].

The numerous puppet soldiers inside, after the "Immortal of War" Li Kan broke out of the tomb, quickly weathered and decayed, and now they have all turned into scrap metal, piled up haphazardly at the bottom.

Broken chains swayed gently, striking the stone walls and producing hollow sounds that echoed throughout the tomb.

Gu Fangchen leaped and landed on the already opened bronze coffin.

The coffin was empty; there was no body inside.

When this "Soldier Immortal" was suppressed and sealed, only his soul remained; his physical body must have been completely destroyed.

"The first-grade Eternal Realm... is indestructible for eternity, which means it cannot be killed, so it can only be sealed."

This is the general understanding of the first grade among practitioners.

Gu Fangchen walked along the edge of the coffin, looking up at the words carved on the surrounding stone walls, her eyes gleaming.

However, Gu Fangchen had just witnessed the death of a first-rank official, and it was a complete and utter death, the kind that could never be resurrected.

Because if it were based on the original cultivator's understanding of the first rank, when time and space are transcended, he could not have been killed so easily.

In the original game, the method to kill Xie Qian in the Confucian storyline was extremely extreme, and it could even be said that it involved a system bug.

In the game, there is a profession called "Liar".

This profession has an active skill called "Deceive the Heavens and Cross the Sea".

The effect is that when a player communicates with another person, they can specify a word and have its meaning replaced, but this will become ineffective once the other person sees through it.

Furthermore, this semantic replacement is a replacement of the game text itself!

In other words, this involves skills related to low-level code.

Meanwhile, in the game, Confucian practitioners who reach the second rank will possess the supernatural power of "words becoming law".

Of course, this supernatural power requires a great deal of karma to achieve.

However, this is not a big problem for players. As long as they maintain a good relationship with the [Four-Phase Lord of Calamity], they can accumulate as much karma as they want.
Therefore, after meeting the above two conditions, an incredibly innovative method emerged.

That is, to set up a real, shocking scam by replacing a certain concept with "Xie Qian".

Then, kill the replaced concept!
Therefore, it is equivalent to using causal magic on Xie Qian to kill him.

In the game, this is a truly effective method. Players only need to follow the Confucian path and become a high-ranking member of the Confucian school, and then it's time to show off their skills.

The difficulty lies in ensuring that the connection between the two cannot be discerned, and in completely eliminating the concept.

Gu Fangchen once chose to replace "Da Wei".

The moment the dynasty changed, the "Great Wei" came to an end, which also marked the death of Xie Qian.

"But looking back now, although the method was outrageous, it still killed a first-rank official, which is different from the common understanding of 'immortal'."

"So, in other words, we can first confirm that cultivators in the Eternal Realm are not truly immortal and indestructible."

Gu Fangchen sat on the edge of the coffin, looking at the stone wall in front of her, lost in thought.

Furthermore, he could barely make out most of the words on these stone walls and deduced that the person who sealed "Military Immortal" Li Kan called him "enlightened."

In other words, in the eyes of these people, the highest rank should be "attaining enlightenment".

Li Kan was a person from ancient times, and the so-called ancient times were what these people called the "Great Age of the Furnace".

This is the era before the ancient Zhou Dynasty, with a huge gap in between.

The period between the "Great Age of the Furnace" and the ancient Zhou Dynasty is completely blank, with no documents available, and almost no information about the "Great Age of the Furnace".

"No, it's not that there are almost none, it's that there are none."

Gu Fangchen shook her head.

He was very familiar with the existing text of "Mirror in the Dust," and there was no description of "the Great World of the Furnace" in it.

Just like in the game, there is no concept of "Mirror in Dust".

"Then... this information must have been deliberately erased."

Gu Fangchen recalled the scene she saw before she lost consciousness, as well as the voices she heard.

The second voice, referring to itself as "朕" (the imperial "I"), clearly came from "Hengchang Daozhu" (the Lord of Hengchang Dao).

His true title was "The Primordial Human Emperor," which corresponds exactly to the information in that sentence.

However, Gu Fangchen used to think that the "Hengchang Daozhu" took "Hengchang" as his Dao because he maintained the continuity of dynasties and the eternity of the dynasty.

Now it seems that his "Tao" is even more profound than imagined!
It seems that he was the one who created the Nine Netherworlds!

Before this, people in the world did not even have the chance to become part of the cycle of heaven and earth; they were directly "eternally fallen".

This puzzled Gu Fangchen greatly.

If "Master Hengchang" is so strong, why is he playing house here?

He's capable of creating a new realm, so why should he care about the stability of this dynasty...

Based on all the information Gu Fangchen knew, Emperor Yong'an not only cared, but cared very much about maintaining the Great Wei, or rather, the existence of a certain order.

It's like picking up a sesame seed and losing a watermelon, but ironically, they still value that sesame seed very much.

Gu Fangchen couldn't figure it out for the time being. She tapped her knee lightly with her fingers, closed her eyes, and continued to ponder the other words.

The six directions and the universe are filled with stars, the great furnace of heaven and earth is originally without the Way, yet those who attain the Way, in their vast and mighty flow, end up as dowry for flies and insects.
It's all fake...

Based on what they saw, it is clear that "attaining enlightenment" is not a good thing for these people.

However, it did not go so far as to warn later generations against practicing it.

It's just that, in the end, everyone who cultivates themselves ends up doing the work for "flies and insects."

Cultivation itself is not a bad thing, but "attaining the Tao" is, in a sense, a futile effort.

"So……"

Gu Fangchen suddenly opened her eyes:

"What if what has never been destroyed throughout eternity is not the cultivators, but the 'Dao' itself?"

Immediately afterward, his pupils dilated, and a terrifying thought flashed through his mind—

"The Tao has its own consciousness! The Tao is just a fly!"

This thought made Gu Fangchen take a deep breath.

Since the Great Furnace of Heaven and Earth originally had no Dao, there is only one possibility.

The "Tao" is an outsider, a parasite.

In the beginning, there was no way to cultivate in this world. It was only with the emergence of "Tao" that this concept came about.

This explains why these high-level cultivators have such ambiguous attitudes, and why their statements are mostly vague.

If that's the case, then "the Way" is not a bad thing for practitioners.

The cultivator thus gains power, becoming extraordinary and incredibly strong, which is certainly not entirely a bad thing.

Even for low-level cultivators, this is a great thing with no harm whatsoever!
However, these high-level cultivators must have realized that if things were allowed to continue, something bad would happen, so some of them chose to pull back from the brink.

However, by then, it was all too late.

Gu Fangchen could imagine that since cultivation had become a system, it meant that cultivators had become the mainstream.

For lower-ranking cultivators, this was the foundation of their superiority, an absolute and unshakeable fact. Thus, a massive conflict inevitably erupted, creating the void between the "Great Furnace Era" and the Ancient Zhou Dynasty.

This has led to the current situation where there are very few "first-class" products.

After all, when Li Kan faced Ning Caiyong, he also said, "You are not a surviving enlightened being from the Great Age."

This means that during the "Great Furnace Era," there was probably internal strife among cultivators, resulting in only a portion of them surviving, and Li Kan was one of them.

However, one should not believe everything Li Kan says.

He himself had been imprisoned in this ancient tomb for so many years, so his understanding of the outside world was probably not as good as Gu Fangchen's.

"But the general situation should be about the same."

From these few sentences and the clues in the ancient tomb, Gu Fangchen was able to analyze most of the situation.

After all, although he didn't understand "The Great World of Furnaces", he did understand "The Mirror in the Dust".

Gu Fangchen pondered for a moment, mentally reviewing and summarizing the events:
"Simply put, the current situation is likely that three groups of people are fighting each other."

"The first group of people believed that the 'Tao' was a 'fly' and probably wanted to stop its continued expansion. The last words of 'Tianmen Mountain' should have been about the same thing."

“‘Heng Changdao Master’, Ying Baishou, and Ning Caiyong are representatives of this group.”

"The second group of people wanted to pursue even greater power, so they supported the expansion of 'Tao' and thought it was a good thing."

"The 'revealed' path reveals that there are still those who have not yet appeared, such as ancient survivors like Li Kan, who belong to this group."

"The third group of people, or perhaps they are not people at all, should be the 'Tao' that has developed consciousness."

"We don't know who this group of people is yet, but they must exist. Otherwise, people like 'Hengchang Dao Master' wouldn't choose to hide their power. It's as if they are being restrained everywhere, which means they must be hiding from something."

"This is the part of the plot that I'm familiar with, the part that wasn't explained..."

After Gu Fangchen finished reviewing the situation, she looked up at the narrow strip of sky formed by the sword marks that shone with sunlight. She felt a sense of enlightenment, but also a sense of loss.

For him, this was like solving a huge mystery in the game.

But at the same time, there is still one major problem that has not been solved.

So, who exactly is "Gu Fangchen"?
Before leaving, Ning Caiyong said, "That old fellow chose you," and also said that "Master Hengchang" could be trusted.

Although it is uncertain whether the two are the same person, it is certain that the descendant of "Hengchang Daozhu" who produced the Dao through discussion should be him.

"He probably wanted to use me so that I could learn this information from the game in order to suppress the 'Tao'."

Gu Fangchen frowned:
"Judging from his behavior, he approves of my actions."

"In other words, I accomplished what he wanted to do when I broke free from the predicament of the identity of 'Gu Fangchen'."

Gu Fangchen pondered for a moment. As everyone knows, after eliminating all the impossibilities, the remaining answer is the only possibility.

He remembered a clue he hadn't yet used.

Before he fell into a coma, he heard a clear voice reading aloud.

"Can the Dao be obtained and learned? In the past, there were nine who transmitted the Dao, named Fu Mo, Luo Song, Zhan Ming, Nie Xu, Xu Yi, Yu Ou, Xuan Ming, Can Liao, and Yi Shi..."

Since the "Tao" is a parasite, it means that it must have a host!
These hosts are also known as "preachers".

These nine names are the names of the "Preachers".

Gu Fangchen narrowed his eyes and picked out a few that he recognized:
“Nie Xu, Xuan Ming, Can Liao…”

Old Ding's greatest enemy, the Great Heavenly Samoha Wuliang of the Qingman, used the alias "Nie Xu" when he entered the Central Plains.

The real name of "Yu Bai Gong" was Xuan Ming.

The Imperial Preceptor's designated residence was the towering "Shenliao Pillar" in Huangtian City.

"While we cannot be certain that there is a one-to-one correspondence, we can at least be certain that these nine names do correspond to people."

Gu Fangchen hesitated for a moment.

Because it appears that "Tianmen" and "Dao" are connected, they may be the source of the infection.

Others may be unsure, but "Yu Bai Gong" did not come into contact with "Tianmen," but rather his daughter Xuan Ling did.

And it is quite obvious that he should be one of the "preachers".

Moreover, the other two are not the corresponding real names either, which means that these words should only be a guide to some kind of imagery.

"No matter what, these people must be very important!"

"Since the 'Master Hengchang' can be trusted... we'll know once we get back and ask him."

This time, he wasn't asking Emperor Yong'an, Xiao Ding, but rather the old man who had always been hiding behind the scenes!

Gu Fangchen leaped out of the tomb and said in a deep voice to Qing Jian, who was waiting:

"Pack your things, let's get ready to return to Huangtian City!"

……

three days later.

"Boom!"

As summer approaches, thunderstorms continue to rage over Huangtian City, with dark, heavy clouds pressing down.

Amidst the faint rumble of thunder, Gu Fangchen re-entered Huangtian City.

This time, only Qingjian accompanied him back.

He left the others, including Xuexiang, at the prefectural governor's office in Xiajingdao for the time being, while Ding Xingfeng simply went to guard the city. If they came back, the border defense would be completely empty.

Anyway, he's only back this time to confirm some information, and he'll be going back soon.

He also promised Lao Ding that he would go to Qingman to kill Maha Wuliang.

If this news is confirmed, it will kill two birds with one stone!
"Your Highness! It's been so long!"

Xiao Qiu, round and chubby like a ball, was waiting outside the Ziji Hall early in the morning, greeting him with a beaming smile:
"His Majesty is currently meeting with the monk Shenxiu inside regarding the upcoming sermon at the Garan Temple. You will be able to enter once he comes out."

Gu Fangchen nodded and looked up at the familiar palace.

Perhaps because she was frightened by Ning Caiyong, the matriarch has not reappeared recently.

Gu Fangchen felt inexplicably bored.

Shortly after, the monk Shenxiu emerged from inside, looked at Gu Fangchen, smiled, and clasped his hands together in prayer.

"Amitabha Buddha, I must thank you again, benefactor."

I gave him quite a bit of money last time, and it seems it really made him happy, since he still remembers it now...

Gu Fangchen was speechless, but she smiled, put her hands together in a gesture of respect, brushed past him, and entered the hall.

"Your Majesty? You should know I'm here..."

As Gu Fangchen was speaking, she suddenly realized something was wrong.

Behind the curtain, the figure who had always sat upright was now crooked and swaying, with a large amount of blood flowing down the steps, and a head rolling down from above.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

P.S.: The nine names are from "The Great Master" in the Inner Chapters of Zhuangzi.

(End of this chapter)