Chapter 162 – Shadowless in Luozhou

In a stone pavilion on Plum City’s Heavenly Lake Mountain, a square plate, eight meters long and six meters wide, floated above a table. The plate’s structure was exquisitely intricate, containing a circular area with a six-meter diameter, which in turn held a rhombus-like region. As the gears beneath the plate turned, black mist churned outside the circle and seeped in. Within the circle, azure stone and mercury flowed out, automatically coalescing within the rhombus to form undulating mountain ranges and river systems. As mountains rose and plains shifted, as seas surged and waters folded, pillars were driven upward, and gold and silver orbs levitated and spun. Soon, an incredibly detailed, three-dimensional map of the Great Wilderness and the mortal realm materialized before the three men.

“The Grand Historian’s Dharma-Image Plate?”

Old Heavenly Craftsman raised an eyebrow, recognizing it at a glance.

Before the Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division, Kongsang was the world’s center for calendrical studies. The instruments used for astronomy and geography, much like the methods for interpreting the Celestial Calculation, were largely monopolized by the Hundred Clans. Even the Heavenly Works Mansion, which prided itself on “replacing the work of heaven with human craft,” could hardly compare. There were many types of armillary spheres and terrestrial models, but they could generally be categorized into three types: armillary spheres for observing celestial phenomena, topographical charts for surveying terrestrial laws, and calendrical plates that combined both. The calendrical plate that Bei Ge Zi Jin had produced was a masterpiece of both material and craftsmanship, clearly not something an ordinary calendrical master could possess. Legend had it that the Hundred Clans of Kongsang held a total of twelve such calendrical instruments from the Primeval Era.

Among them, the Grand Historian’s Dharma-Image Plate was wielded by the Taiyu Clan.

The last sea pearl, representing the moon, rose into place. Zi Jin released his fingers, his forehead already beaded with cold sweat and his face as pale as paper. With his cultivation mostly destroyed, fully simulating the geography and celestial phenomena of the Twelve Continents on this ancient plate was the absolute limit of his ability.

“My nephew is the son of Tai Yu Cen,” Zi Jin said.

Old Heavenly Craftsman and Zuo Yuesheng immediately understood. More than a decade ago, Tai Yu Cen had been a prominent figure in the martial world. He was the Heaven-Supervising Official of the Taiyu Clan, a position second only to the clan head. During the Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division, he had not gone south to participate in the siege of Yongzhou, but was instead responsible for guarding Kongsang. When Kongsang was breached by Taiyi, he fled with his wife and child, only to be intercepted and killed by the Wind Flower Valley near the Cloud Ridge in Cangzhou.

Only the whereabouts of his young son remained unknown. If Tai Yu Cen’s son had been rescued by Bei Ge Zi Jin, it was no surprise that he had entrusted the Taiyu clan’s calendrical instrument to him.

“I once entrusted Young Master Lu with returning this plate to the Divine Lord, but the Divine Lord, in his grace, bestowed it upon me,” Bei Ge Zi Jin explained briefly.

Zuo Yuesheng gave a slight nod to Old Heavenly Craftsman, indicating that the man was telling the truth. He had heard from Lu Jing that when Elder Mu He of Ghost Valley had laid out a formation across a thousand-mile mountain range, it was this man who had betrayed the Hundred Clans of Kongsang and helped conceal it. And not long ago, although Lu Jing had not given Chou Bodeng the list of righteous remnants of the Hundred Clans compiled by Bei Ge Zi Jin, he had sent a projection of it to Zuo Yuesheng.

Despite this, the moment Zuo Yuesheng entered Plum City, he had immediately sent people to place Bei Ge Zi Jin and his nephew under surveillance. At this critical juncture, the presence of two remnants of the Hundred Clans was too sensitive, and he could not afford to be anything less than extremely cautious.

Bei Ge Zi Jin seemed unconcerned by the caution of Zuo Yuesheng and Old Heavenly Craftsman. He simply pointed at the Grand Historian’s Dharma-Image Plate, causing the celestial phenomena like the sun, moon, and stars to dim. As the celestial phenomena faded, the terrestrial features of mountains and rivers became distinct. A dozen points of light appeared on the landmasses of the Twelve Continents.

“Please look, you two,” Bei Ge Zi Jin said, holding back his wide sleeve with one hand and pointing to a glowing dot in the northwest of the plate with the other. “These are the locations of the Heavenly Wedges set down by the Divine Lord in the Primeval Era.”

Zuo Yuesheng and Old Heavenly Craftsman nodded. Although neither was versed in calendrical science, they understood such basic concepts. In the Primeval Era, the Divine Lord had established the Immortal Sects as wedges driven into the earth, riveting and tightening it to support the canopy of the sky. This was also the origin of the ancient name “Eight Cardinal Immortal Sects”: “eight” referred to the directions—the eight extremes of north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest of the Twelve Continents—while “cardinal” signified “all,” referring to all the major and minor sects located along these eight extreme lines.

“Do you two know the reason for ‘The Northwest Sky is Deficient, so the waters flow to the southeast’?”

Old Heavenly Craftsman took a drag from his pipe and shook his head without a word. Zuo Yuesheng could only remain silent as well. The Heavenly Works Mansion excelled in forging, but their knowledge of calendrical science was limited. Zuo Yuesheng had studied some of it back when he was investigating the celestial orbits, but in the past twelve years, he had been busy managing the large enterprise of Qingzhou and assisting Chou Bodeng and Lu Jing, so his knowledge had remained at its previous level. Knowing some common sense was already quite good; how could he possibly know the answer to such a complex, core question?

He had only even heard of “The Northwest Sky is Deficient” from Monk Budu after arriving in the West Continent.

With the situation being urgent, Bei Ge Zi Jin could only explain the essentials. He pointed to the pillars at the four points of the rhombus and said gravely, “These four wooden pillars are the four Heavenly Pillars. Please, observe the locations of the four Heavenly Pillars.”

This was the first time either of them had had such a direct, comprehensive view of the world’s four poles. Previously, calendrical science had been monopolized by Kongsang, and astronomical instruments were hidden away by the Hundred Clans, making them inaccessible to outsiders. The Heavenly Pillars were remote, at the very ends of the mortal realm, and even for cultivators, it was rare to have traversed them all. For Zuo Yuesheng and Old Heavenly Craftsman, the only one of the four poles they were somewhat familiar with was the Southern Chen Pole, which was the Undying City. Twelve years ago, during the great calamity of the Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division, the Mountain Sea Pavilion had been on duty guarding the Undying City. To defend the Southern Chen, Zuo Yuesheng’s mother, Lady Yan Huatang, the former Pavilion Master’s wife, had personally led an elite force to the Undying City, and her soul remains there, guarding it to this day.

Now, with the Grand Historian’s Dharma-Image Plate floating and rotating, the most distant places became clear at a glance.

“The border.” Zuo Yuesheng vaguely grasped something.

“Yes.” Bei Ge Zi Jin nodded. “The four poles are at the border between the mortal realm and the Great Wilderness. Please look… beyond these four poles is the Great Wilderness. And the Great Wilderness is chaotic and formless. Eroded by it, the earth’s crust on the outer side of the Heavenly Pillars is rotten and brittle, not as sturdy and thick as the inner side. If the pillars were just placed there, over time, they would inevitably collapse toward the Great Wilderness. Therefore, Heavenly Wedges are needed to support them… If both the Heavenly Wedges and the Heavenly Pillars could be placed in their proper positions, then the resulting sky would be like an overturned basin, covering the four wilds, and the earth would be like a chessboard, laid out in a rhombus.”

As he spoke, Bei Ge Zi Jin tapped the Grand Historian’s Dharma-Image Plate. The gears turned again, and the flowing sand moved, changing the contours of the Twelve Continents. Some broken, concave areas were filled in, and some protruding parts were smoothed out. The positions of some of the Eight Cardinal Immortal Sects also shifted. When the sand and stone settled, Bei Ge Zi Jin made a gesture with his fingers, first connecting the main sects of the Immortal Sects, which served as Heavenly Wedges, to the Heavenly Pillars with golden lines, and then connecting them to the top of the Fusang Divine Tree with silver lines.

Zuo Yuesheng and Old Heavenly Craftsman were instantly stunned. Before them appeared an exquisitely arranged version of the Twelve Continents of the mortal realm! Luo Continent, bordered by Cang, Lan, and You Continents, formed the largest landmass, situated in the very center of the mortal realm, with the other eight continents distributed around it. The golden lines connecting the “Heavenly Wedges” outward to the four Heavenly Pillars perfectly counteracted the silver lines connecting them inward to the Fusang Divine Tree… This was a balance with Kongsang as its center of gravity, the sky-reaching Fusang Divine Tree as its anchor point, and the lines connecting the Heavenly Wedges as its tethers!

An absolutely perfect balance! The moment this perfect balance was achieved, the black mist flowing across the lands of the Twelve Continents melted away like snow, and beyond the four poles, the surging black miasma could no longer penetrate the continents by even an inch.

“Zhoubi’s Heaven Covering.”

“The sky covers the square earth, to separate the obscure from the bright. With cities like scattered stars and a brilliant populace, we could then conquer the Great Wilderness and establish a new order… This was the ‘Zhoubi’s Heaven Covering’ plan laid down by the Divine Lord in the most ancient of times.”

Bei Ge Zi Jin’s sorrowful voice was carried by the biting north wind, passing through the stone pavilion. The Grand Historian’s Dharma-Image Plate slowly rotated in the wind, the mountains and rivers formed of sand and mercury emitting a faint glow, condensed into a distant, illusory dream.

The sky was like a dome, the earth like a star chart, with cities below and stars above, and the sun and moon on their journeys. It was a sight so beautiful it could almost bring one to tears.

Neither Zuo Yuesheng nor Old Heavenly Craftsman spoke, their pupils reflecting the rotating Dharma-Image Plate, reflecting the glittering mountains and rivers.

After a moment, Zuo Yuesheng’s voice was low. “Did you Hundred Clans of Kongsang know about this all along?”

Bei Ge Zi Jin shook his head. “Perhaps the heads of the great clans knew.”

“Then how do you know?”

Bei Ge Zi Jin smiled but didn’t answer directly. Instead, he asked, “Pavilion Master, do you still remember ‘When a pole is erected in Luo City, what is the length of its shadow’?”

“Erect a pole in Luo City, erect a pole in Luo City,” Zuo Yuesheng found the question exceptionally familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before, but he couldn’t recall where. He muttered it twice, and as his gaze swept over the Fusang tree in the center of the plate, where the sun and moon were passing over its crown, he blurted out, “Luo City is shadowless, the pole has no length!”

He had indeed heard this question, and he had indeed heard someone answer it. Twelve years ago, before the world-famous Glazed Street in Zhunan was burned to a ruin, in an elegant room of the amorous Qin Tower, a zither maiden was plucking the strings, playing Peacock Terrace. Amidst the red candlelight, a figure in red lounged on a couch, pouring his own drinks, his voice lazy.

…But in the Beheld Continent, shadows are many and uncertain, their lengths varying with their direction… Luo City is shadowless, unlike the rest.

“The Treatise on the Seven Traverses.”

Zuo Yuesheng remembered everything. That day, the Twelve Questions of the White Flower, secretly controlled by the Desolate Attendants, had posed this very question. At the time, not only were there calendrical experts from Kongsang like Taiyu Shi in the Qin Tower, but also many well-read scholars, yet only Chou Bodeng had been able to answer. And this question came from the ancient book, the Treatise on the Seven Traverses.

It was an ancient book universally acknowledged as “a scroll full of absurdity.” The author was unknown, as was the time of its writing. Its content was bizarre, obscure, and riddled with errors. Diviners had tried to interpret it, but not a single image corresponded to the present world, and it was ultimately dismissed as the ravings of an anonymous person masquerading as an ancient sage… But what if, from the very beginning, it didn’t correspond to the present world?

Zuo Yuesheng’s gaze fixed on the “Zhoubi’s Heaven Covering” model. The ten suns were moving uniformly over the Twelve Continents, and at the very center of the world…

Kongsang, Luo City.

“The Treatise on the Seven Traverses is not a work of nonsense,” Bei Ge Zi Jin said in a low voice. It wasn’t until after the Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division, when every move the Divine Lord had made as the profligate of Taiyi was sung by storytellers as romantic tales, that he had noticed the answer the Divine Lord had given from the Treatise on the Seven Traverses. And it was his research over the past twelve years that had brought him to a complete realization. “…It must have been the Divine Lord’s initial blueprint. If ‘Zhoubi’s Heaven Covering’ had succeeded, Kongsang would have become the center of the world. A pole erected in Luo City, at the heart of Kongsang, would indeed be shadowless! Since it has no shadow, one naturally cannot speak of its length.”

Zuo Yuesheng was numb. The ash from Old Heavenly Craftsman’s pipe had fallen all over the ground.

Bei Ge Zi Jin gestured toward the northwest Heavenly Wedge. “This is the true northwest Heavenly Wedge, the place where the Beast Taming Sect’s main sect should have been.”

The heavens are round and the earth is square; the northwest corresponds to the southeast. If the “Zhoubi’s Heaven Covering” plan had been realized, the Beast Taming Sect’s location should have been symmetrical to Zhunan. Zhunan was by the sea, so the Beast Taming Sect’s main sect should also have been in the sea. However, in reality, the Beast Taming Sect’s main sect was located in the Dragon Head Thousand Peaks mountain range on the West Continent’s mainland.

“The Divine Lord’s original location for the northwest Heavenly Wedge was in the Ancient Sea, to use the wedge to suppress the harsh winds. The Ancient Sea is fierce and violent; to establish a Heavenly Wedge there would require the Divine Lord’s personal presence. But at that time, trouble was brewing in Kongsang, and no one but the Divine Lord could stop its fragmentation. If the Divine Lord had remained in the Ancient Sea, the Central Continent would have descended into a battlefield. Therefore, the Heavenly Wedge was ultimately moved back, and set here…”

Bei Ge Zi Jin moved the point of light symbolizing the northwest Heavenly Wedge.

“Here.”

Before his finger had even stopped, Zuo Yuesheng and Old Heavenly Craftsman had already seen the impact of this reluctant change: the sky, round as a canopy, immediately collapsed in a large section in the northwest. The perfect balance of the four poles, the Heavenly Wedges, and Kongsang was broken. The landmass of the mortal realm began to slowly tilt from northwest to southeast.

The map gradually became high in the northwest and low in the southeast. The Ancient Sea washed over the West Continent, and Qingzhou in the southeast sank towards the Azure Sea, its continental edge constantly fracturing and breaking off. As millennia passed swiftly, the coastline receded further and further. In addition, the other continental plates, in their tilted collisions, became jagged. Some rivers expanded into inland seas, and some plains were squeezed into high mountains. And Kongsang, because of this, lost its “shadowless” central position.

The sky, round as a canopy, was shattered. Black miasma once again poured into the mortal realm from every corner, and the flames of war ignited across the Twelve Continents.

Amidst the flames of war, the seven-volume, 8.26-million-word Treatise on the Seven Traverses was scattered to the dust, becoming nothingness. All that remained was the absurd book silently printed by the Taiyi Sect, a collection of fallacies that everyone disdained to read.

“The Heavenly Wedge was forced back, and the ‘Heavenly Canopy’ calculated by the Zhoubi method collapsed in this corner, with the most direct consequence being that ‘the northwest sky is deficient’,” Bei Ge Zi Jin released his hand, watching the white sand dance like snow, covering the West Continent. “The northwest sky is deficient, the phoenix descends, and a hundred rivers run cold. The temperature in the West Continent is too low, making it difficult to cultivate the five grains, so people can only live by fishing and hunting. From the earliest days of hunting, the people of the West Continent grew accustomed to cooperating with demonic beasts, and also to hunting them… The place where humans and demons are closest, like a warm winter fire, is the West Continent. But the place where humans and demons hate each other most, like a raging inferno, is also the West Continent. Therefore, the Beast Taming Sect could only have been born here, and nowhere else.”

The extreme cold had led to an unprecedentedly twisted relationship between humans and demons. And when a cultivator with an iron fist, who as a child had witnessed an entire city of people slaughtered by a herd of elephants, took over as sect master, this twisted relationship was pushed completely in the direction of mutual hatred.

The fuse for war was thus laid. In the end, the Divine Lord’s return and the re-emergence of the Thirty-Six Islands onto Qingzhou lit it.

“To solve the problem of the West Continent at its root, there is only one way: to reset the Heavenly Wedge.” Bei Ge Zi Jin looked at Zuo Yuesheng and said in a low voice, “What exactly a Heavenly Wedge is, what resetting it will trigger, and what price must be paid—Pavilion Master Zuo should know this better than I.”

Lightning streaked across the night sky, illuminating Zuo Yuesheng’s hardened face.

—What was a Heavenly Wedge?

It was the countless ancestors of the Zuo Clan, deep beneath the nine cities of Zhunan, who sustained the life of the Black Tortoise with their flesh and blood. It was the countless sea pillars in the Azure Sea that stood against the waves and calmed the Raging Sea.

“Bone as sacrifice, blood as offering.”

Zuo Yuesheng said softly.

That was the most ancient of times. In an era when heavenly gods, earthly demons, and mortals were still intimate, everyone followed the Divine Lord to establish the four poles and define the eight directions, from north to south, from east to west. They walked through a desolate, murky gloom. It was a gloom unimaginable today; even one as powerful as the Kuafu Giant fell on the road to forging the North Star. But at that time, Kongsang was still Kongsang, and the Cloud Center was still the Cloud Center. Everyone loved one another, and no one left, just like the ancestors of the Zuo family and the Black Tortoise, who willingly suppressed the sea with their bodies in Zhunan.

Because they all still believed.

—They believed that the round, heaven-covering canopy they had all agreed upon under the Fusang Divine Tree would surely be realized.

Suddenly, Zuo Yuesheng understood. He understood why Chou Bodeng—or rather, why he should be called the Divine Lord—could never be a true profligate, why from beginning to end he could never let go of his vow to establish the four poles and define the eight directions.

Because… so many gods, so many demons, so many people, had fallen with complete trust in him.

If he were to stop, how could he look back? How could he face those departed friends who had trusted him? Their lives were a bloody burden delivered onto his shoulders.

But if he were to move forward, how could he face those old friends who had now become new enemies?

“In the Primeval Era, to establish the four poles and set the Heavenly Wedges, the Divine Lord used his own blood as the sacrificial offering, along with the bones of fallen heavenly gods, earthly demons, and sages as the sacrificial victims,” Bei Ge Zi Jin said, looking up, his face deathly pale. “But if today, the Beast Taming Sect truly wants to reset the Heavenly Wedge, what method would be most likely to achieve the blood sacrifice?”