Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)
chapter-305

Zhou Dufu's mausoleum naturally did not use any ordinary materials. The wooden racks that displayed magical artifacts should have been made of the extremely expensive Five Flowers Pearwood. Only it was very obvious that the number one expert under the stars was not knowledgeable in antiques. He only knew that the Five Flowers Pearwood was extremely precious and rare and was highly durable against moths and worms. Yet he did not know that this hardwood required a moist environment to preserve its properties. In the cold and dry environment of this mausoleum chamber, it only required a few decades for it to rot. In perfect condition, the rotted logs in the corner of the stone chamber could have been sold at a sky-high price, but now they were only a worthless pile of rotten logs.

What could cause such a knowledgeable and experienced young genius like Xu Yourong to give a cry of surprise was obviously not those rotten pieces of wood, but the items buried within them.

Chen Changsheng walked over and used a ruler-like magical artifact to pry apart that pile of wood. He realized that buried within was yet another magical artifact. That magical artifact had a black color, and he couldn't tell what it was made of. When he felt it, it seemed incomparably sleek. It seemed very similar to a fossil of some type of peculiar tree found on the western seaside.

"What's this?" he asked, handing that black magical artifact to Xu Yourong.

Xu Yourong took it and carefully examined it for a long time, slowly tracing her fingers over it. Finally, she said, "If I'm not wrong, this should be White Emperor City's Soul Pivot."

Chen Changsheng was somewhat surprised. He had never encountered this name in any of the three thousand Daoist scriptures, so he asked, "Soul Pivot?"

Xu Yourong gave back that black magical artifact, using her eyes to indicate that he should take good care of it. "Yes, this Soul Pivot possesses an unimaginable magic power, the ability to command monsters. Even those legendary and outrageous monsters who are on the verge of stepping into the Saint realm have no means of resisting the Soul Pivot's command. The reason the White Emperor clan has been able to rule over the monster realm for so many years is for the most part because of this. Of course, this is also their greatest secret. Besides the White Emperor's bloodline, very few outsiders know of it. If I hadn't seen a picture of it at my predecessor's place, even I would not have recognized it."

After a pausing for a moment, she continued, "I didn't think that this precious treasure of the demi-humans had actually been snatched away from White Emperor City by Zhou Dufu and then put to use in this Garden of Zhou. The reason why those monsters in the plain are unwilling to approach this mausoleum and instead have silently protected it for several hundred years is most likely because of this Soul Pivot."

Chen Changsheng had not imagined that this magical artifact would be so important. He resolutely stored it away.

Logically and in accordance with his normal temperament, he would have discussed with Xu Yourong how to divide the treasures they found in this mausoleum, but he was in a rush to find certain items and had no time for such matters. Moreover, the important point was that since the Soul Pivot originally belonged to the White Emperor clan, he believed that it was only right to return it to Luoluo.

Xu Yourong took in all his actions with her eyes, but she did nothing. The mutual understanding and trust they had built up over the course of this journey had made it very difficult for any misunderstanding to come up between them. On the contrary, she even gave a him a word of advice. "According to that painting, the Soul Pivot requires the Soul Wood to display its full power, but the Soul Wood isn't here."

Chen Changsheng took that old iron ruler magical artifact and rummaged through the pile of wood. Xu Yourong would give an explanation of the magical artifacts he found, and only then did Chen Changsheng realize that these magical artifacts that seemed like a pile of scrap metal were all famous. There were even three magical artifacts that had been placed on the Pavilion of Divination's Tier of Legendary Weapons.

The magical artifacts did not cause his footsteps to pause. Seeing that the stone chamber did not have the things he was looking for, he immediately turned and left. He went to the second stone chamber on his right. Only as he moved did he finally find the time to say to Xu Yourong, "Everything that we find, we can divide evenly."

Leaning on his shoulder, Xu Yourong lightly chuckled and said, "If we can get out, that is."

The items in the second stone chamber had not rotted away. Although the items were not the most precious things in the world, they were something that was loved by everyone in the world. Even if some refined scholars would often criticize these things as being vulgar, even describing them as mud or dirt, upon being confronted with this scene, they would also shake all over with excitement, barely restraining themselves.

It was a room filled with gold. Even after several hundred years, it still sparkled with a dazzling light, causing anyone that looked at it to squint their eyes, as if this was the only way to avoid being burned by the light.

Xu Yourong was stunned into silence. She thought to herself, when Zhou Dufu crisscrossed the continent, just how many clans did he rob and how many families did he destroy? Chen Changsheng was much calmer—not because his cultivation had reached such heights that he could regard wealth as transient clouds, but because in the Imperial Palace of Zhou, in that cold underground space, he had seen much more gold.

Once people have experienced something, people would naturally find it hard to get excited when experiencing it once more, but this did not mean that Chen Changsheng was not interested in this chamber filled with gold.

Previously when he had determined that this mausoleum held no dangers, he had returned his dagger to its sheath. Now he removed the dagger along with its sheath from his belt, and began to point.

The noble scholars say that even the unbending stone must bow its head, but he was not pointing at the gold to open his mind and comprehend the Dao. Stone could be turned into gold, but he was not planning to turn this gold back into stone. He was unconcerned with allowing those who came later to comprehend the truth of the myriad things returning to one, letting them embrace this simple and unchanging principle. What he wanted to do was take all this gold without missing a single bar.

If that Black Dragon were to wake up and realize that he had left even a single bar of gold behind, it would inevitably pester him to no end.

With the movement of his sheath, the gold within the chamber vanished before their eyes. Ultimately, all the gold had been transported to some unknown place.

Xu Yourong had realized that his dagger was odd long ago. It was most likely some sort of spatial magical artifact. She also had a similar magical artifact on her person. The Wu Arrows and Tong Bow as well as some underclothes were all stored within. So she was not amazed by this sight, but her curiosity was piqued. The space within this dagger seemed a bit too large. Throughout this journey, she had already seen him squeeze far too many things into that space.

Moving that room full of gold into that space did not take up too much time. Chen Changsheng very quickly brought her away into the third stone chamber.

The chamber was filled with crystals. With the passage of time, the power within these crystals had gradually scattered. Most likely, they contained only a third of their original strength, but they were still good items. Without any prompting from Xu Yourong, he repeated the scene from the second stone chamber and very quickly wiped it clean.

The fourth stone chamber was filled with various treasures.

This time Chen Changsheng worked even faster. Xu Yourong only had time to blink her eyes, not even to say anything, and those night pearls, coral, jadeite, white jade and other similar treasures had all been stored away in his sheath. It was so fast that she felt that her eyes were seeing things, that maybe this stone chamber originally did not even have anything?

The fifth stone chamber was filled with all sorts of secret cultivation manuals. Xu Yourong had originally thought that he would be more cautious so that in the course of transporting those cultivation manuals, they would not be damaged. These secret cultivation manuals once belonged to countless experts of the past, and represented Zhou Dufu's innumerable battles. They were the cultivation world's history, and their importance was beyond questioning. Yet Chen Changsheng still very quickly left the stone chamber, not pausing for a moment longer. Wherever his dagger pointed, that place became empty. In his eyes, those secret cultivation manuals were no different from worthless scrap paper.

Xu Yourong did not understand. When he entered the sixth chamber, gave it a quick glance, then turned and left, this cause her perplexity to reach its peak.

She recalled that whether he was confronted by gold, or magical artifacts, or crystals, his eyes remained clear and bright. There was no greed or even any of the happiness that anyone would feel upon seeing such a sight. As he took away the gold, crystals and magical artifacts, it was like he did not care—as if he took it away only because he saw it. So then just what was he looking for?

"In this mausoleum, just what exactly is it that you need to find?" she asked.

Chen Changsheng did not answer, because there was no time to answer. He rushed from chamber to chamber, going faster and faster.

When they arrived at the ninth stone chamber, Xu Yourong noticed that his eyes finally lit up, that a strand of joy finally appeared within them.

This stone chamber had no shelves. There were many bottles and jars laid out haphazardly on the floor. Some of the bottles were made of celadon, while some of the jars seemed very similar to those used to simmer chicken stock. It was a good thing that those bottle and jars were not on shelves, or else they would all have been shattered on the floor.

Chen Changsheng paced in front of these bottles and jars, his fingers slowly moving across of them, his gaze extremely focused.

Suddenly, his fingers stopped, and he took up a jade box. There were no markings on this box, so she did not know what was inside of it. When the lid of the jade box was opened, an extremely light fragrance floated up. He moved his nose closer and took a sniff, and after considering for a few moments, decided that he was not wrong. The joy in his eyes traveled to the rest of his face, and his body finally relaxed.

Leaning on his back, Xu Yourong very clearly felt his two shoulders suddenly relax, no longer as tense and hard as they were before.

"What's this?" she asked.

"This is a fireflow pill."

Chen Changsheng took a pill from out of the box and explained, "The primary ingredient is the juice of the fire thorn, which has an extremely powerful fire characteristic, ranked third in the world. It's miraculously effective for producing blood, especially for you."

Hearing these words, Xu Yourong was at a loss. For a very long time, she did not say anything.

Only now did she realize why he was so tense, his steps so rushed, why he could ignore all those crystals and treasures.

He was in a hurry to find medicine for her.

This deeply moved her.

She cultivated the Dao of the external world, mixing herself with worldly affairs. So that her Dao heart would be brightly lit, she could not be delighted by things or grieve for her fellow man. Thus in the eyes of the common people, she was very haughty and cold, a phoenix that soared high in the sky. She also viewed herself in this way. She believed that she would never suffer such an emotion that would harm her Dao heart, that she would never be deeply moved by anything.

In these plains, from that patch of reeds to this mausoleum, there were several times where she had almost been truly moved by his actions, but every time, she had used her unimaginable mental willpower to suppress it. For someone like her, to suppress love and hate was relatively easy. To suppress anger was also very easy. But to be moved was a very special emotion and very difficult to suppress.

The emotion would never suddenly appear. It required a very long time to gradually appear, but the moment it truly made itself known, it certainly was rather sudden. It required a certain point. To gather and then explode… these words could be used to talk about cultivation, but it could also be used to describe this emotion. At this moment, that emotion had finally broken through that unyielding wall, and in the cool breeze, it began to sway and grow.

She was truly deeply moved.