Chapter 16: Peach Blossom
At the instant when the Female Priest touched the Divine Stone.
On the ancient stone Ritual Altar, countless golden tendrils like threads of silk extended outward from her body.
Peach blossoms blood continuously along her arm, and finally upon the branches ford from her arm.
They transford into a massive canopy that obscured everything around.
Afterward, a peach tree of enchanting form took root upon the Divine Stone.
It was also from this mont onward.
The transformation of the mountain advanced further, and the main peak of Mount Kunlun vanished forever from mortal eyes.
Within the Divine Stone at the summit of Kunlun.
At first.
Li Jun was still able to see the mountains and rivers outside, and he personally witnessed the transformation of the Divine Wood Peach Tree.
In fact, at that ti, the upper half of Mount Kunlun had not yet disappeared, it was only invisible to the naked eye.
This scene was exactly the sa as the earliest vision on Tao Mountain Island.
Through the eyes of the Blue Bird beneath the tree, Li Jun saw the peach tree in its entirety. It was as if a woman sat on the ground, leaning against misty peaks and cloudy mountains, gazing at a wondrous piece of jade in her arms.
However, the transformation did not end there.
Several months later.
A radiance blossod from the “woman’s” bosom. That light was similar in color to sunlight, yet the feeling it brought was entirely different.
The light of the Great Sun made people feel brightness and reality.
But this light was twisted, lost, and void.
As the light continued to spread, it influenced everything around.
The entire summit of Mount Kunlun twisted, space folded everything nearby, and little by little, the summit of Kunlun and everything upon it was drawn into that light, vanishing, lost into an unknown place.
The whole process lasted nearly a dozen years before it ended.
When everything finally cald, the summit of Mount Kunlun was no longer in the human world, but had entered another unknown realm.
At this mont.
When Li Jun looked out again from within the Divine Stone, apart from the lower half of Mount Kunlun beneath his feet, there were no longer mountains or rivers—only emptiness.
“What is this place?”
This power was far too great. The power of the peach tree ascended further, and it could be certain that this space would only continue to expand.
The scene before his eyes made Li Jun inevitably think of the Thirty-Three Heavens, the Immortal Realm, the Paradise of Bliss, the Heavenly Realm, and things of the like.
And in the end.
From beneath the tree erged a figure, bearing the appearance of the Female Priest, yet she was not a Wood Guest.
Her form was illusory and hazy, without any true substance to support it—not even shadows of light.
Yet in Li Jun’s eyes, she stood there as real as could be.
“Female Priest?”
“Peach Tree?”
“No, that’s not it.”
Although she had the exact sa face as the Female Priest, Li Jun felt that compared to a human or a tree, she was more like the wind within the forest, or the moon among the clouds.
She had left behind the five senses of man, lost the body of man, even the will of man was gone.
The Female Priest had already passed through the stages of parasitism, mutation, and possession, and had entered into a fourth form.
Her shape was ethereal, like a wandering soul.
Her expression was no longer mad.
Neither sorrow nor joy.
The “Female Priest” slowly walked up the Ritual Altar. She stepped onto the winding trunk of the peach tree, and little by little walked to the front of the Divine Stone.
She stretched out her hand, and that hand actually passed through the Divine Stone.
Truly touching the “Emperor.”
Only at this mont did her silent expression reveal a trace of joy.
The Female Priest signed with him the most ancient of contracts. As long as one used a certain thod combined with a simple incantation, and paid a portion of sacrifice, one could borrow from the Female Priest a fraction of the peach tree’s power.
Perhaps, this was the very first true ritual incantation for offering sacrifice to ghosts and gods.
She drifted in with the wind, and departed upon it.
It was unknown whether she was ghost or god, but in the primordial tis, there was little difference between the two.
But no matter what, she was no longer human.
In less than twenty years, the Great Roc had already aged beyond recognition.
“Hu!”
From far in the northwest, the wind blew.
It crossed the boundless grasslands and brushed past the Great Shaman, even dragging the clouds in the sky into shapes of wind.
Perhaps because half of Mount Kunlun had disappeared, the winds upon this highland land had grown more bitter.
The aged Shaman stood still for a long ti.
She recalled the scenes of long, long ago.
Her younger self, dressed in plain garnts, wearing a crown of grass and a shamanic mask, climbing that Mount Kunlun.
Upon the Ritual Altar at the mountaintop, before the Emperor, she danced gracefully, singing songs that praised the heavens and earth’s vastness.
She seed to want to carve those mories into her heart forever, unwilling to let them go even in death.
However.
Recently, the Great Roc felt her mories growing faint, many past scenes gradually blurring in her mind.
She did not know how many tis, year after year, she had co to the foot of this Mount Kunlun.
The Ximu Clan had already grown ever stronger, no longer the sa as in the past.
In the northwest, countless tribes were annexed by the Ximu Clan, their population swelling more than tenfold. They no longer even needed to migrate, having found richer and more habitable grasslands and hos.
She wore clothes that had changed from coarse hemp into silk from the East, and the fine jade, gold, and silver ornants made her appear, in the eyes of ordinary tribesn, as noble as soone from the heavens.
However, they still ca here as usual.
“Where has the Emperor gone?”
“Where does the Jade Peak of Kunlun now stand?”
“The Ritual Altar that my Ximu Clan once built to worship the Emperor—does it still remain?”
Since that Jade Peak of Kunlun had vanished, although the Emperor still responded to her through the art of divining with bird feathers, she had never again seen the Emperor.
“Great Roc, it is ti to return.”
“The sky is getting dark.”
At her side, a young woman in plain garnts ca forward, helping the Great Roc onto the carriage fra.
As she boarded the carriage, the Great Roc looked at the young woman, as though seeing her younger self.
This ti coming here, the Great Roc seed to already have so kind of premonition.
“When I die, you will be the Shaman.”
“Then, you should also change your na to Little Roc.”
Shaman.
Though possessing divine power, still a person.
A person, in the end, could not escape death.
The carriage was drawn by four horses, each of them blue in color.
The carriage carried the Great Roc across the land and among cattle and sheep. Wherever it passed, all people knelt upon the ground, revering the Great Roc as though she were a god.
At last, the vehicle stopped within a massive felt tent in the distance, around which nurous clansn of the tribe dwelled. The foot of Mount Kunlun had beco far more lively than in the past.
Each day, the Great Roc handled all the affairs of the Ximu Clan within this tent, passing on all kinds of experience to the young woman in plain garnts.
Among them, the most crucial were her experiences in wielding the powers of a Shaman.
Although the young woman had not yet fully inherited the power of the Shaman, she would need that experience sooner or later.
Gradually.
The climate beneath Mount Kunlun changed again, cold pressing upon them step by step.
The young woman in plain garnts returned from patrolling on horseback, entered the tent, knelt before the Great Roc, and said to her:
“Great Roc, the weather is changing.”
The aning was, they should migrate once more.
Without lifting her head, the Great Roc said: “This ti, I will not go. Let the others leave!”
Then at last she looked toward the young woman: “You must also not leave. Stay here with .”
Hearing this, the young woman understood.
The Great Roc said: “My destiny has co to its end.”
Snow and ice covered the entire foot of Mount Kunlun. The great river froze into an icebound stream, and heaven and earth alike turned into frost.
But amid such a scene, dozens, even hundreds of people followed the Great Roc’s carriage, coming to the foot of Mount Kunlun.
The upper half of Kunlun’s Jade Peak had disappeared.
Thus, the top of Kunlun now looked more like a flat plateau. More than a decade ago, the Ximu Clan had built a Ritual Altar here.
Larger, heavier, and more imposing than the one on Mount Kunlun in the past, it better displayed the Emperor’s grandeur.
But in the eyes of the Great Roc—
No matter how this altar was built, it could not compare to the days of old, when the Emperor upon the myriad mountain peaks looked upward and stars shifted at his shoulders, looked downward and rivers and seas gathered at his feet.
The Great Roc removed her outer fur robe and silk, wearing only white plain garnts, and walked toward the Ritual Altar.
“I am leaving.”
As she passed by the kneeling Little Roc, she spoke these words.
Little Roc lifted her head, and saw that in the bitter cold, upon the Ritual Altar, the Great Roc was dancing.
Amid the cold wind, the Great Roc grew younger and younger. At last, the human part of her gradually vanished, and the bird part of her gradually took over her entirety.
Thus, she flew toward the heavens.
Higher and higher.
At that mont, the Great Roc suddenly let out a sharp cry.
“Jiū!”
It seed as if she once again saw that Mount Kunlun, floating above the clouds and mist. Excited beyond words, she flew toward it, vanishing into the radiance of the clouds.
On the other side.
Li Jun, who had been imrsed in observing the transformations of the Divine Wood Peach Tree, finally freed himself from that profound change.
He heard soone calling him, and imdiately saw the Great Roc within the clouds and mist.
“Emperor!”
Only then did Li Jun realize that another year had passed.
Counting the ti he had remained here, it had already been twenty years.
His body could not move, his mouth could not speak.
Yet it seed that so kind of chanting voice resounded in the clouds and mist, spreading along the firmant until it reached the ears of the Great Roc.
The Great Roc saw Mount Kunlun, the layers of cloud and mist parting, a road opening from the human world into that divine mountain realm.
“Jiū!”
The Great Roc cried out even louder, filled with joy, for the Emperor had opened the gates of Heaven to welco her.
This ti, no tribesman urged her to return to the mortal world.
She could cast off all the bonds of the human realm, soaring freely in the heavens, forever circling at the Emperor’s side.
She flapped her wings with all her strength, flying higher, seeking to follow that cloud road visible only to her, to fly there.
To fly to the summit of Mount Kunlun as it once was, and once more stand beneath the shadow of the Emperor.
But halfway there, she realized that even the bird part of herself had begun to disappear.
It was disappearance.
Not dispersal.
It was as though so force was devouring her entire being, consuming all that was human, all that was bird, all that was Shaman, swallowing everything whole.
The disappearance began at the tips of her wings, spreading bit by bit to her body, then gradually covering her head, until at last even the points of light in her pupils were swallowed.
She had no ti to fly to the forr summit of Mount Kunlun.
Instead, she lted into the boundless clouds and light above the heavens.
And the scene Li Jun saw also ended there. He was stunned for a mont, then suddenly understood sothing.
“The price of the Blue Bird’s divine power?”
Li Jun had observed the peach tree before him for a long ti, believing he had gained so understanding of the Divine Wood Peach Tree, even able to pierce its outward form to glimpse part of its essence.
And at this very mont, he gained a deeper understanding of the strange being he controlled called the Blue Bird.
“Demon!”
No matter how powerful his Double Pupils were, no matter how firmly they could restrain the existence of the Blue Bird, the essence of a demon would not change.
To use the power of a demon ant paying a price.
That price would never vanish, only be delayed.
But in the eyes of the Ximu tribesn, the sight was different—it was that the Great Roc had flown beyond the human world, reaching another heaven or realm above the Sea of Clouds.
The entire great Ximu tribe beat the ground in worship, while shouting in excitent:
“The Great Roc has ascended to Heaven in feathered form.”
“She has gone to Kunlun.”
At this mont, the aning of Kunlun seed to shift again.
It now stood as a symbol for another heaven or realm.
And in the eyes of Little Roc, the Great Roc transford into a beautiful bird.
She circled in the sky, letting out sharp cries, as if calling to sothing.
At last—
She dissolved into streams of radiance in midair, leaving behind only a single Green Feather.
That green feather fell precisely before Little Roc.
Little Roc lifted the feather in her hands and looked up to the heavens.
“Great Roc!”
From that mont onward, she was the next Shaman of the Ximu Clan.
But after Little Roc stood up holding the Green Feather, she lowered her head and gazed upon it, recalling the one who was gone, yet her mind was blank.
Other than the na “Great Roc,” she could rember nothing more about her.
All that she had been as the Great Roc, all that she had been as the Great Mother, Little Roc could no longer recall.
It was as if—
Aside from the na “Great Roc” left behind in myth, everything about her had vanished into the flow of years.
Yet at this mont, Little Roc felt little fear. In her eyes, this was only another proof that the Great Roc no longer belonged to the human world.
At the cloud-shrouded summit.
Within the Divine Stone, Li Jun’s pupils split into Double Pupils.
Upon the Divine Wood, the divine bird like a Phoenix stirred, and it seed Li Jun wished it to act.
“Go, bring back—”
Li Jun wanted the Blue Bird to bring the Green Feather back. But at that mont, his vision overlapped again.
The mysterious land shrouded in clouds and mist before him faded, as another sight gradually covered it.
He was returning.
Tao Mountain Island.
It was an incomparably bizarre sight: the ground and the dense peach grove coiled into a spiral, winding in a circle from underfoot up into the sky.
At its end, a ball of divine radiance grew ever more dazzling, as though drawing all things lost into its glow.
Within the peach grove inverted above his head—
Beneath one of the trees, Li Jun was dozing, as if only a short while had passed.
“Emperor!”
Again by his ears ca a voice, like both a chant of sacrifice and a cry of calling. His eyelids trembled, and he opened them.
“What is this?”
“Oh!”
“It’s Tao Mountain Island!”
Li Jun covered his face with his hand. This dream had been too long—so long that he had nearly forgotten where he was.
Supporting himself on the peach tree, he slowly stood. He was no longer the undying Emperor overlooking the vicissitudes of the mortal world atop Kunlun, but rely Li Jun, who had barely escaped death.
Li Jun leaned against the peach tree, sowhat dazed.
Before his eyes—
Figures shifted, each vivid and alive.
Within the Divine Stone of the ancient tis, he had gazed down upon everything without fear of the years, as if no emotion could ripple his heart.
But now, countless emotions surged into this mortal body, and he felt his chest tighten until he could scarcely breathe.
It took Li Jun quite so ti before he shifted his focus to the surroundings.
He pulled out his phone and checked the ti.
“About an hour has passed.”
He looked again toward the distant light. The distance had not closed much since before he had “dozed off.”
This island had vanished from human sight, just like the scene when the Female Priest sacrificed herself in the primordial age.
Now, the light at the island’s center had already begun to twist the surrounding space, devouring everything nearby, exactly like the scene atop Kunlun’s peak.
But according to Li Jun’s observation, the light was consuming Tao Mountain Island much faster.
“Kunlun took over ten years to be transferred inside—this Tao Mountain Island may not take nearly that long.”
Li Jun prepared to leave, but suddenly rembered the faint voice he had heard upon waking.
It felt like a dream, yet at the sa ti startlingly real.
He turned his head, but saw no one.
Suddenly—
He lifted his gaze to the peach tree he had leaned upon earlier.
On the tree full of blooming peach blossoms, he faintly saw the figure of another person.
“Nüjue?”
Li Jun spoke in the language of the ancients, calling out that ancient one’s na.
But sadly, there was no answer.
Only peach blossoms were blown down by the wind, slowly settling upon Li Jun’s shoulder.
Breathing in the fragrance of flowers, Li Jun turned and walked deeper in.
Stepping upon the carpet of fallen petals.
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