"♪~~"
Whistling casually, Old Li sat behind his office desk, flipping through intelligence reports from all over Great Chu. Although he had staff specifically designated to review them, he still liked to peruse them himself from ti to ti.
"Boss! Boss!"
Suddenly, calls ca from outside the door. Old Li frowned slightly but still responded,
"What is it?"
"There’s an expert outside asking to see you by na, skilled in Yellow Robe Eighteen Falls and already at the level of Golden Robe, claiming to be an old acquaintance of yours!"
A young man dressed in coarse clothes and with a towel draped over his shoulder spoke up. He looked like a waiter running about, but if a fight really broke out, three to five grandmasters might not manage to take him down.
"An old acquaintance?" Old Li’s eyebrows rose quizzically. He didn’t recall having any old friends in these parts, but he nodded and said,
"Take him to the Bamboo Forest Pavilion; I’ll be right there."
"Got it!" The young man turned and left, and Old Li stood up, stretched a bit, then grabbed a small red clay teapot and slowly made his way toward the Bamboo Forest Pavilion.
What should have been a one-minute walk took him nearly ten, but as soon as the doors of the Bamboo Forest Pavilion opened, he zipped inside the room, shut the door, and then said, surprised,
"Weren’t you back in Infinite City already? I thought you’d closed the door on that place!"
"The door’s closed, but the rules of Descent still apply!" Feng Xue shrugged nonchalantly and took a sip of tea, and Old Li slapped his forehead in a feigned realization,
"Look at , forgetting your Mystical Lord has made it into the Kaidan. What brings you back this ti?"
"Nothing major, just have so questions for you." Feng Xue crossed his legs, and seeing him like this, Old Li relaxed, gently sipped so yellow wine from the teapot, and sat down opposite Feng Xue,
"Questions for ? About what? If you want to know sothing nowadays, can’t you just go buy it at the tavern? Or is it sothing about the Hundred Tales?"
"There are no more Hundred Tales left in this world," Feng Xue said calmly. Old Li didn’t catch on at first, staring blankly for a while before he processed Feng Xue’s words, then exclaid wide-eyed,
"What did you say?"
"I said there are no more Hundred Tales left. Green Lantern consud all the Kaidan from Hundred Tales, only the Heavenly Dog, Tamamo no Mae, and a few others are left." Feng Xue didn’t want to shock Old Li too harshly, so he didn’t ntion that it was him who demolished the Hundred Tales.
Yet as an old-tir from the sa era as Hundred Tales, even just such a revelation was shockingly impactful for Old Li. Muttering under his breath with phrases like "How can this be" and "Impossible," he seed almost crazed until Feng Xue forcefully clapped his hands to snap him out of it.
"In any case, I just wanted to ask you about what’s at the top of the Tower of Babylon."
Upon hearing Feng Xue’s question, Old Li abruptly shook off his lingering confusion and furrowed his brows,
"Why would you ask that?"
Feng Xue couldn’t help his eye twitch at the sight of Old Li’s deanor. With that kind of posture, he suspected that the demonic attitude from before was all an act by Old Li.
But fussing over that seed pointless. He didn’t give a direct answer, simply replying with calm:
"Just out of pure curiosity. After all, the Tower of Babylon is so tall, and it’s the center of Infinite City. Everyone would be curious, wouldn’t they?"
"I’ll take it as you’re just curious." Old Li didn’t dwell on the question, just as Feng Xue didn’t bother with whether he was feigning ignorance. Old Li just pondered for a mont, then, as usual when Feng Xue asked him questions, he ca back with a counter-question—
"Do you know how many levels there are in the Babylon Tower?"
"Who knows that? A thousand levels? Two thousand? From the outside, it looks like it must be at least several kiloters tall," he had to admit, the question did hit a blind spot in his knowledge. After all, the exterior of the Babylon Tower was a completely different structure from the inside; from the outside, it had no concept of levels, except for that ten-ter-tall doorway that indicated the height of the first level.
But internally, each level of the Babylon Tower was more like an independent space, with skies and sun and moon, even if these were similar to artificial dos in a landfill, each level was at least dozens of ters high. After all, there’s a departnt store over twenty ters tall on every level.
Hearing Feng Xue say this, Old Li revealed a strange smile. He shook his head and gave a number that sowhat surprised Feng Xue—
levels.
"Only 120 levels? That ans even if it’s filled, there would only be 6,000 Kaidan?" Feng Xue expressed his surprise at the unexpectedly small number. Old Li nodded and said:
"To be exact, if it’s full, there would only be 5,021 Kaidan."
"5,021..." Feng Xue pondered the number that had clear implications, and imdiately guessed, "The first hundred levels have fifty each, and the last twenty levels have one each, plus one Tower Master at the end?"
"That’s right." Old Li didn’t seem surprised that Feng Xue had guessed correctly, and said in a neutral tone:
"What I’m telling you is only what I’ve heard from others. As to whether it’s true, I don’t know either. After all, I’ve only climbed to the 67th level myself. The person who told that there are 120 levels in the Babylon Tower was a resident of the 66th level, um, his na seed to be... Sugawara..."
"Sugawara Michizane?" When Feng Xue heard the surna "Sugawara," he imdiately thought of one of the legendary three great Evil Spirits from the Eastern Country. Old Li smacked his palm in confirmation:
"That’s right, it’s him!"
"But Sugawara Michizane should have been from over a thousand years ago. If he beca a Kaidan back then, how could he be in the Babylon Tower? If he stole the power of Kaidan in modern tis, how did he obtain such a grand divine position right under the noses of Hundred Tales? And such a grand deity wouldn’t be easily overthrown, right?"
With just a na, all kinds of doubts surfaced in Feng Xuexin’s mind. Old Li listened to his questions but didn’t elaborate further, only shaking his head:
"I don’t know the specifics, but what I can tell you is that Sugawara Michizane should be a Kaidan born over a thousand years ago. Whether he has survived to this day through continuous worship or resurrected from legend due to so reason, I’m not certain. But I can tell you that from the 50th level upward, there are quite a few such antiques."
"So, you’re saying many ancient spirits that were once revered as gods actually didn’t completely perish, but instead hid inside the Babylon Tower? But that doesn’t make sense either, hasn’t Infinite City only existed for less than fifty years?"
Feng Xue was utterly confused, but Old Li only calmly shook his head:
"This is beyond what I can know. At the end of the day, I’ve only been a Kaidan for a re thirty-sothing years. You’re asking these questions about the elderly, and I’m clueless. If you really want to know, you’ll have to find out yourself. Of course, you’ll have to build a solid foundation first. Otherwise, you might end up like , getting your ho stolen while halfway up the tower—that would be a true mortal tragedy."
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