Chapter 34 Part 2

Twenty-eight years ago, the night he took human form.

How had the anomaly lit up the sky outside the Pure Bottle?

Where had Mu Cheng’s river of blood flowed from?

Lian Yunzhi’s heart pounded. He closed his eyes, planted his feet on the ground, and reverted to his original form.

Spirit Capturing Grass was a simple spiritual herb. Most spiritual grasses showed little external change with age; take Condensed Frost Grass—for instance, a thousand-year Condensed Frost Grass looked almost identical to a ten-thousand-year one externally, just slightly whiter. Accurate assessment required spiritual power.

But Spirit Capturing Grass was different.

It constantly captured spiritual energy, constantly grew its body; the older it was, the larger it became.

Even mortals could distinguish a one-year Spirit Capturing Grass from a ten-year one at a glance.

As for a hundred-year Spirit Capturing Grass?

Few in the world lived past a century. Lian Yunzhi’s early slow growth stemmed from rooting in a barren courtyard isolated from spiritual energy. Normally, a fifty-year Spirit Capturing Grass could grow as tall as a house; even in the wild, it would quickly be spotted and harvested. In sealed secret realms, large ones were more prone to being devoured by Demon Beasts or even wild animals—it benefited all life. Even a common little rabbit would stash a few small Spirit Capturing Grasses in its burrow to nibble slowly.

Then what of a ten-thousand-year Spirit Capturing Grass?

Lian Yunzhi’s feet turned into roots, his torso into a long stem, his limbs into branches and leaves. He began to grow slowly.

Lian Yunzhi had never seen his ten-thousand-year original form.

Whenever he grew to Mu Cheng’s chest height, Mu Cheng would smile, bend down, sigh that it smelled so good and he wanted a taste, scaring Lian Yunzhi into shrinking back into the soil and reducing his size. How annoying.

So forget a ten-thousand-year form—he’d never even grown taller than Mu Cheng’s chest.

In ten thousand years, Spirit Capturing Grass revealed its massive original form only once: the night it took human shape.

Lian Yunzhi had fully transformed into plant form but didn’t stop growing. He kept sprouting upward, kept growing taller, kept expanding.

His branches and leaves squeezed into every inch of visible space, his vines thickening, clawing wildly, drawing ever closer to the Pure Bottle’s dome.

A hundred zhang, ten zhang, one zhang.

He kept growing.

A hundred chi, ten chi, one chi.

He kept growing.

A hundred cun, ten cun, one cun.

He kept growing.

His vines and leaves fully touched the dome; thorns on the vines left star-like scars on the jade top. The Pure Bottle trembled, daylight leaked from the land’s edge, and his growth finally slowed.

But that daylight was just a sliver, enough for only a river to flow out, so he had to grow more.

Every branch and leaf stretched out, instinctively capturing every wisp of Black Mist in the air, purifying it into the wood spiritual energy he needed to enlarge his body. He continued growing.

Thus, the Pure Bottle hummed, daylight widened, golden patterns shifted but could no longer form chains to bind a Spirit Capturing Grass that shouldn’t have been trapped here and bore no sins.

Mu Cheng, inside the vine cocoon, looked up at Lian Yunzhi and smiled faintly, extending his hand to continuously feed Black Mist from his body to the Spirit Capturing Grass.

Rumble—

No stone in the world, no bottle, could stop a single blade of grass from growing.

Thus, the Pure Bottle collapsed with a crash.

The sky brightened.

.

Mu Cheng finally beheld the true sky after ten thousand years.

He opened his eyes, felt sunlight spill across his face, the vast blue reflected in his pupils.

The vine cocoon on him receded.

He stood, trembling as he breathed in genuine, fresh air without a trace of foulness.

The massive Spirit Capturing Grass happily swayed in the air, lowered its head to look at him, and a soft, small leaf gently pressed against Mu Cheng.

But only for an instant.

The sky and sunlight lasted only an instant.

The fresh air lasted only an instant.

Almost as soon as sunlight enveloped Mu Cheng, the golden inscriptions inside the Pure Bottle shot out from the mouth in unison—strokes linking into chains, verdict words forming a cage, firmly trapping and locking Mu Cheng!

Those were words Lian Yunzhi had seen before—

【You shall reincarnate eternally in the cage with the millions of wronged souls you devoured, endure ten thousand bone-crushing torments, ten thousand flayings…】

But Mu Cheng hadn’t endured ten thousand bone-crushings or flayings. His spiritual root hadn’t been extracted millions of times, his Spirit Washing Blood hadn’t flowed across every inch of Xiaoze State, merging into every river.

He hadn’t repented, hadn’t revived the souls he devoured, hadn’t granted new life to the extinguished ones.

Yet he emerged from the cage just like that.

Thus, those declarative words became void, shattering into powder—but without losing power, layering instead onto the final passage—

【…Only then can your soul be torn into millions of pieces, turned to snowflakes, to sweet rain, falling into Xiaoze State to bring new life to this land.】

The Spirit Capturing Grass stiffened instantly. It flung out all its vines toward Mu Cheng, but it was too late.

Mu Cheng, bound by golden chains, rose to heights the vines couldn’t reach. The text-formed golden chains grew brighter, shifting forms, ultimately simplifying to one sentence—

【Your soul shall be torn into millions of pieces.】

“No—”

Lian Yunzhi reverted to human form, took Imperial Sword Flight into the air, and desperately lunged toward Mu Cheng—

But it was too late.

The air stilled, chains forming a barrier.

Through the churning gaps in the chains, Lian Yunzhi saw Mu Cheng’s eyes—bloodshot, unwilling, pained… regretful—as they stared at him.

His soul was about to be torn into millions of pieces.

Lian Yunzhi trembled all over.

He felt unprecedented agony, as if his vines were yanked root by root, his heart pierced by needles. He seemed to plummet into the deep sea, saltwater flooding mouth and nose, crushing his chest, leaving him unable to breathe.

He felt loss.

He knew his cultivation hadn’t dropped, his Divine Soul undamaged. He simply felt the Dao Companion Contract vanish, and beneath it, the loss of a remnant, altered Beast Taming Contract once etched deep into his soul.

Yet his heart felt hollow, incomplete from then on.

Mu Cheng’s soul was about to be torn into millions of pieces.

But he could do nothing.

In the final instant, the final glance, as he sensed the remnant mark of the Beast Taming Contract about to fully erase from his soul’s depths, Lian Yunzhi tremblingly issued his little Demon Beast one last command.

【—Do not feel pain.】

Mu Cheng paused, looked at Lian Yunzhi before turning to powder, and gave him a faint smile.

Lian Yunzhi desperately wanted to see that smile clearly.

But Mu Cheng’s smile was too brief, and tears blurred his vision.