The Mirror of Startling Beauty: Her courtiers are everywhere

At the end, the Crystal Palace stands quietly above the clouds.

With upturned eaves and corners, it is a magnificent building.

Crystal clear glass, carved railings and jade steps.

The entire celestial palace was cast from silver-blue glass, radiating a soft yet vast light in the void.

Like a bright moon that has been asleep for a thousand years, it hangs atop the sea of ​​clouds.

Tang Xixue stood at the end of the path, looking up at the celestial palace she had traveled for so long to reach.

Behind him were ten thousand spiritual herbs in the Immortal Medicine Garden, and in front of him were the tightly closed palace gates.

She didn't look back at the magnificent garden once; her gaze remained fixed on the door.

The gate was over ten zhang tall, and its entire body was made of silver-blue glass, with intricate spiritual patterns engraved on the door.

The patterns climb and twine like vines, extending from the cloud patterns at the foot of the door all the way to the lintel.

Like an ancient vine that has lived for millions of years, it firmly locks the entire door.

In the very center of the lintel, there is an inscription in ancient seal script.

"The Gate of All Beings"

Tang Xixue looked up at those four words, a feeling she couldn't quite describe welling up inside her.

Those four characters were written exceptionally well, with elegant strokes and a magnificent spirit; every stroke conveyed a tender compassion for all living beings.

She could almost picture the expression on the face of the Flowing Cloud Medicine God when he stood before this door and personally carved those four characters.

She must have been smiling, with the most sincere expectations for future generations of doctors.

The gate to all beings should be opened for all beings.

She stepped forward, stretched out her hands, and placed them against the door.

A cool sensation came from my palm; the door was as heavy as an entire mountain, as if it were integrated into the entire celestial palace.

She pushed hard, but it didn't budge.

She pushed it again.

This time she used her spiritual power, and a faint silver-blue ripple appeared where her palm met the glass door, like a pebble thrown into still water.

But after the ripples subsided, the door remained completely still.

There was no handle, no keyhole, and nothing to grip on the door.

Only the spiritual runes flowed slowly, silently scrutinizing her.

She took a step back, her gaze sweeping over the spirit patterns on the door.

She recognized those spiritual patterns; they were a combination of ancient medicinal script and sealing techniques, with each pattern representing a lock.

There are nine layers from the foot of the door to the lintel.

The lock has nine interlocking links, each one essential.

The bottommost lock is clearly shaped like the outline of a key.

It's that key.

The silver key hidden in the Three Lives Tree, which she used to break the Heavenly Chess Game.

She instinctively reached into her sleeve, but her fingertips only touched empty fabric.

She's already used up that key.

It transformed into a piece, landing in the central position of the Kan Palace, splitting open the sea of ​​clouds for her, paving a path of light, and opening up this path to heaven that no one had been able to reach for thousands of years.

But it can never come back.

The Taoist priest said that the key was used to activate the city's protective formation.

But there's also a keyhole on this door.

She murmured, her heart slowly sinking.

There is only one key, but there are two locks that need to be unlocked.

So, she looked up at the tightly closed, massive glass door and suddenly understood.

Heaven has calculated the final step.

It not only laid out a chessboard outside the cliff, but also made its final move on this door.

There is only one key; you can only choose between the Cloud Sea Chess Game and the Gate of All Beings.

If you use the key to solve the chess puzzle, you can enter the celestial palace but not the main gate.

If you keep the key to open the door, you won't even be able to cross the cliff.

No matter which choice you make, there will always be a dead end waiting ahead.

Once the key is given, there is no turning back.

This door is the kind of door that can only be opened with that key.

But she had already thrown that key into the sea of ​​clouds with her own hands.

This is the final measure of Heaven's will.

It's not about stopping you, it's about giving someone hope only to extinguish it with your own hands.

Let her crash into a cold wall when she's just one step away from the finish line.

Let her discover for herself that all her efforts to break through deadlocks, embark on the path of light, and climb the ladder to heaven were ultimately for a door that could never be opened.

She stood in front of the door, silent for a long time.

"Ha, what a meticulously planned scheme."

A breeze blew from behind her, carrying with it the intoxicating, cool fragrance of the thousand-year-old spiritual herbs from the Immortal Medicine Garden.

The leaves of the nine-leaf Ganoderma lucidum swayed gently in the wind, and the dew of the Heavenly Heart Lotus dripped into the jade medicinal garden, making a crisp sound, like some kind of silent temptation.

They were waiting for her.

All the rare and exotic herbs in the entire herb garden were waiting for her.

Even if she can't enter the celestial palace, she has already gone the farthest in a thousand years.

If she simply turned around and took away any one of the medicinal herbs, it would be enough to make her famous in medical history.

But she can't stop.

If she stops here, Yaoguang City will be a dead city tonight.

My senior brother will die, the Taoist priest will die, and there are mothers holding children, little girls holding bamboo tubes, and old men sitting on the bluestone slabs looking up at the sky on the long street...

And those she had never met, yet who were always striving to live, would all die.

"The gate is the gate of all living beings."

Tang Xixue looked up at the tightly closed glass door. The silver-blue light reflected in her clear peach blossom eyes, revealing the anger that had been suppressed for too long.

"Why not open it to all living beings?"

Her voice echoed in the empty clouds, but no one answered her.

The spiritual runes continued to flow slowly, silent, cold, and aloof.

"This door is high above, firmly locked. Just like the gate of power that is locked away from all the women in the world."

"I suppose all doors in this world are like this."

"We thought that if we answered all the questions correctly, we were qualified."

"Once you've climbed one step after another, suspended above the abyss, you've come closer to fairness."

"We have crossed every mountain and ridge, breached all nine passes, and destroyed all ten battle formations."

"We believe that all the doors of the world are open to all people."

"But I only understood when I got to the door."

She raised her head, her gaze passing over the massive gate and landing on something higher and farther away.

"The lock was put up a long time ago."

Heaven has calculated everything.

He used the seal of the Flowing Cloud Medicine God to block her successor, cutting off the last path.

He wants people to come here, see the words on the lintel, see the lock on the door, and then understand.

You may win the game, break the feng shui, and step onto the Heavenly Staircase, but no matter how far you go or how high you climb, you still cannot open this door.

Give hope, then despair.

In the end, it was all for naught.

How ironic.

"But even you, the Medicine God Liuyun, probably didn't expect that the key couldn't even reach the door."

She gripped the sword hilt with one hand and touched the tightly closed, massive glass door with the other.

The cool spiritual runes trembled slightly beneath her palm, like a heart that had been dormant for far too long, suddenly leaping in some distant depth.

"Heaven uses your seals to imprison your descendants and your own rules to block your path."

"You didn't see this. If you had, you would probably be angrier than any of us."

She withdrew her hand from the door and slowly backed away.

One step, two steps, three steps.

She retreated very slowly, each step firm and steady, measuring the distance between herself and the door.

Then she stopped.

She stood three zhang away from the door, the Longevity Sword fully unsheathed, its blade shimmering with a clear, snow-like spiritual light that illuminated half of her face, making it appear bright and cold.

"The door to the throne of God will not be opened for a woman."

The resolve in her voice was even more profound than any of her previous words.

Tang Xixue raised her head and looked at the solitary, pure white spirit flower above the door.

That was the mark of the Flowing Cloud Medicine Goddess, the only totem she left in the world.

The petals unfurled, their graceful forms blooming quietly in the silvery-blue halo, as if waiting for something.

"But a thousand years ago, there was a woman who did not live according to the rules drawn by the world."

Tang Xixue's gaze met that of the spirit flower from afar, gentle yet intense, as if she were gazing across the void at another soul from a thousand years ago that refused to bow its head.

"I'm on the right track."

"The door is wrong."

"Therefore, this door should not be knocked on by me, nor by anyone after me."

With a single sword strike, it fell.

"It shouldn't have existed in the first place!"

The moment the Longevity Sword fell, she felt neither the backlash of the spiritual runes nor the rebound of the seal.

She only felt a strange, warm sensation.

It was as if the sword's edge had sliced ​​through not only the glass, but also a cocoon that had enveloped this door for far too long.

That cocoon wasn't laid by the Flowing Cloud Medicine God.

It is the way of Heaven.

The Heavenly Dao used the seal of the Flowing Cloud Medicine God as a disguise, infiltrating it with its own power, turning this door, which should have been open for all living beings, into a dead end.

And now, she shattered it.

"boom--"

The roar shook the heavens.

The shards of glass scattered like countless stars, and silver-blue light shot into the sky, dyeing the entire sea of ​​clouds into a magnificent crimson and flowing gold.

The colossal glass gate, closed for a thousand years and rejecting countless visitors, shattered into pieces under her sword.

The fragments danced and spun in the air, refracting countless rays of light, as if a god had sprinkled a silver-blue rain from the clouds.

After the fragments settled, she saw the world behind the door.

"The door to all beings will be opened by their own hands. If it cannot be opened, then it is time for them to choose another door."

Tang Xixue took a deep breath and raised her hand to wipe away a tear that had fallen from the corner of her eye at some unknown time.

She saw it; inside the Glazed Immortal Palace, there was a white jade statue of the Flowing Cloud Medicine God, smiling gently at her.

The statue holds an ancient scroll in its hands.

That is the legacy that the Flowing Cloud Medicine God prepared for his descendants.

She had been waiting for this day for a very, very long time.