Forty millenniums of cul.., p.962
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 962
"That explains a lot!" Deep in thought, Li Yao remarked, "That's why you established Ghost Character and instigated trouble among the Cultivators to help the emperor keep the main sects in check. You even led Ghost Character to annihilate a lot of sects in person!"
"Exactly!" Long Yangjun said. "At that time, I had already joined an underground sect that had been passed on among the eunuchs for a thousand years in the royal palace. I had trained the Apparitional Night arts to the highest level and was acknowledged as the leader of the clandestine force!
"The emperor wanted to curb the Cultivators, which was exactly what I wanted, too.
Therefore, I established Ghost Character based on the enormous resources of the underground force. While I was leading the charge and running errands for the emperor, I collected the pieces of the Thousand Stars Tray. Finally, I also found out that the map core was actually hidden in East Peace County!"
Long Yangjun paused for a moment when she reached this part, as if she was still angry about what happened next. "If I were still the dominating Wang Xi in the court, after a year and a half's planning, I would've been able to retrieve the map core openly and establish an exploration team that was absolutely loyal to me. Then, I could have made my way to the Land of Eternal Night and searched for the Divine Palace without alarming anyone!
"The old emperor was completely under my control. The Cultivators were too busy minding their own business to compete with me, too!
"However, it never occurred to me that an existence as weird as Zhu Zongyou would suddenly jump out of nowhere and completely disrupt my whole plan. He almost killed me without leaving me a place for burial!"
Zhu Zongyou was 'Emperor Phoenix', the new emperor who had ascended to the throne last year.
Calling him by his name, Long Yangjun apparently hated his guts!
Li Yao raised his eyebrow and asked, "So, are you not on the same boat?"
"Hehe. The old emperor was entirely manipulated by me and no better than a puppet. Why would I trouble myself by making a new emperor?" Long Yangjun said coldly. "Even if a new puppet was needed, I had already picked quite a few suitable targets who would absolutely not hinder my plan!
"In retrospect, the death of the old emperor was definitely a scheme, and the leader of the scheme was Emperor Phoenix, the then Thirteenth Prince Zhu Zongyou who was hidden in the Thunder Martial Temple and had been forgotten by most people!
"It's a pity that I focused my full attention on searching for the map core and the Thousand Stars Tray at that time, so I was too sluggish to realize the severity of the issue in time. When I finally realized it, my own forces had already been uprooted by Zhu Zongyou as fast as lightning!"
"Wait a moment!" Li Yao found it strange. "Logically, Emperor Phoenix should have had absolutely no support in the Divine Capital. How could he have uprooted the forces that you had raised for decades, including the enormous Ghost Character?"
"It's exactly because of the impossibility that I underestimated him!" Long Yangjun replied hatefully. "Zhu Zongyou is definitely not as simple as he appears, but the force lurking behind him is even more terrible. The elite assassins of Ghost Character were absolutely no match for his newly-founded Fiery Phoenix Legion during the collisions in the darkness. Several of my subordinates who had been loyal to me for decades betrayed me overnight. Their motivation puzzles me even to this day!"
Li Yao sighed and said, "So, you could only turn to the last resort and cooperate with Han Baling, Wan Mingzhu, and Qi Changsheng?"
"Exactly." Long Yangjun gnashed her teeth. "A rat on the street that everybody stomped on, a public enemy for everyone in the world… I didn't care about any of that. The idiotic Cultivators wanted to capture me? Not going to happen in a hundred years!
"But the secret force behind Zhu Zongyou had been strangling me in the darkness all the time. He was apparently going to crush me and glean all my secrets from me!
"My force grew weaker every day. After only half a year and a half, ninety percent of the members of Ghost Character had already been lost. The rest of them were living in panic every day like shocked birds!
"I was fully clear that if I didn't have one last struggle and embark on the quest for the Divine Palace, I might not have the opportunity later!
"Having no other options, I could only tell the secret to Han Baling, Qi Changsheng, and Wan Mingzhu. The Four Rapscallions teamed up to look for the Divine Palace!"
Li Yao rolled his eyes and suddenly asked, "Let me make a guess. You intentionally revealed a loophole during the battle at East Peace County so that I would follow. Then, you told me part of the truth to attract more forces to join the 'quest for the Divine Palace', right?"
"You are quite smart." Long Yangjun was rather surprised. She looked Li Yao up and down carefully again. "Exactly. I wanted as many forces to participate in the competition in the Divine Palace as possible!
"The reason is very simple. Under the attack of Emperor Phoenix, Ghost Character had been significantly undermined. It was not nearly as strong as it appeared to be. Chances were that it was the weakest of the four forces under the command of the Four Rapscallions!
"Also, I was the one who called for the operation. From the perspective of Han Baling, Qi Changsheng, and Wan Mingzhu, it was easy for them to reach the conclusion that I must be keeping some critical information for myself!
"Then, it would be possible for the three of them to stand on the same side and deal with me together in order to exploit all of my secrets!
"As long as they grew slightly hostile, they would see through my weakness right now. I would be caught in the awkward situation where I couldn't fight back at all, which was definitely unacceptable for me!
"Didn't you mention on the desolate land in the east ocean that, since you were all by yourself, you could only introduce as many forces into the exploration mission as possible so that you would be able to fish for what you wanted in the dirty water!
"The same logic applies for me. If more forces participated in the operation, it would be more likely that they would harass and even kill each other, and I, with the crucial information, would be given a precious opportunity!
"After all, our goals are different. The goal of the others is the Cloud Qin Gold Statues, but my goal is to look into the background of the whole issue and find out who I am. Therefore, I will not fight bloody battles in front of the Cloud Qin Gold Statues like them, at least not in the beginning!"
Li Yao nodded slowly.
After hearing that, he finally felt that some of the puzzles that he had in the beginning were solved.
"One more thing."
After a moment of hesitation, Long Yangjun said, "It is just my vague intuition not backed by any proof, but I somehow feel that Zhu Zongyou knows something about the Divine Palace. Even if I hadn't revealed the secret, it's very possible that he would've established an exploration team in secret to search for this place. Judging from his thunderous approaches when he dealt with Ghost Character, the exploration team would be much more than what Han Baling and the other forces combined could handle!
"Since I couldn't stop him, I might as well make it big and introduce more forces into the game. The more, the merrier!"
"What!"
Li Yao was dazed for a moment. On second thought, it was indeed very possible.
The news about the Divine Palace was publicly revealed only after the battle in East Peace County. In just one short month, Emperor Phoenix had already launched aggressive attacks all over the country and established a well-equipped exploration team with sufficient resources. Logically, the whole preparation should have taken much longer than it actually did!
The only explanation was that long before the battle of East Peace County, and before the 'map core' fell into the hands of Wang Xi, he had begun planning everything!
The puzzle was too complicated to be solved for the time being. Li Yao calmed himself down and sorted his messy thoughts. "So, you passed the maze-like internal pathways on the warship, and you knew the passwords to open the gate to the bridge because the uncanny dreams in your head told you the information."
"No. It was just spontaneous." Long Yangjun eyed the crystal pillars around and mumbled, "I didn't know any of that in the beginning. However, the moment that I entered this… Nuwa warship, I had a feeling that I'd come home. I seemed to be familiar with the distribution and direction of every pathway, and I would not make a mistake even if I walked through them with my eyes closed. I reached this place just with just my natural instincts.
"The same goes for the three identification procedures. I didn't know the way to crack them before. However, as long as I cleared my mind and relaxed my body, my fingers were already bouncing on their own as naturally as breathing!"
Chapter 1481: Li Yao's Shocking Speculation! |
After saying that, Long Yangjun suddenly concentrated her eyes and stared at Li Yao. The four crystal clusters were also rotating around her faster and faster, beaming out brilliance as dazzling as her eyes. She said, one word after another, "This is about the background of everything. I've told you all that I know exactly as it is! Just now, you said that you had an ambiguous speculation about my identity. You weren't lying, were you?"
"Of course not." Li Yao put on a fake smile. "However, my speculation is entirely premised on the details that you described. If you haven't been faithful about what you said, the final conclusion may be hilariously preposterous."
"Hehe. there is no need for me to lie to you about such unimportant things. After all, I'm more eager to know who I am than you are!" Long Yangjun said coldly, "If your speculation makes sense, there will still be a possibility for our cooperation. If you turn out to be lying to me, I'm afraid that only one of us will be able to walk out of this… bridge!"
"This is my speculation." Li Yao coughed lightly and explained at ease. "Assuming what you said is true, you landed from the sky in a fiercely burning iron shell when you were an infant. The critical question here is whether you fell from outside of the atmosphere or within the atmosphere? Or, were you shot beyond the atmosphere like a cannonball first and drifted for a while in orbit before you cut into the atmosphere again? Right. Do you know what the atmosphere is?"
"Of course I do," Long Yangjun said. "I used to soar into the sky and break into the universe through the clouds. Naturally, I know what the atmosphere is!
"However, is it really important from where I fell to the ground?"
"In every way." Li Yao nodded and said solemnly, "Generally speaking, after hearing your story, people will suspect that you have arrived from the depths of the universe far, far away and landed on the Ancient Sages Sector!
"However, the Ancient Sages Sector is enshrouded in a thick, dark nebula, which is not easy for a super warship equipped with the best navigation magical equipment to pass through. Is an 'iron shell' simple in structure and not large in volume really capable of passing through the entire dark nebula? I strongly doubt that!"
Long Yangjun was slightly dazed. She mumbled, "I have never seen the thing that carried me to this world with my own eyes. After my foster parents passed away, I tried my best to look for it, too, but without a precise location, and when ten years had passed, where could I find it? However, since they described it as an 'iron shell', it should be a vehicle that was extremely simple in structure and not very large in size."
"That's it!" Li Yao clapped his fists and said, "An 'iron shell' that is simple and small but sturdy and blast-proof, based on my experience, is unlikely to be a warship that can cruise for a long distance in the universe. It is more similar to an escape capsule on a warship!
"It means that you did not fall from the sky. Instead, you were actually 'launched' from a certain starship and flew for some time, presumably not very long, before you reentered the atmosphere!
"Judging from the uncanny dreams in your head, you were probably one of the most important people on this Nuwa warship. You were launched from this place in an escape capsule!"
Long Yangjun's eyes suddenly glittered. She eyed Li Yao up and down carefully before she nodded. "Up to this point, your speculation is rather reasonable. However, the Nuwa warship crashed on the Land of Eternal Night more than a hundred thousand years ago. Could anyone have slept in the escape capsule for such a long time?"
Li Yao hesitated for a moment and said, "Theoretically, maybe, but I feel that your case is different."
"Of course it is different," Long Yangjun replied. "If I were truly an important person on this Nuwa warship, why was I in the form of an infant with absolutely no memories of my past?"
"Perhaps," Li Yao said, "it is not your past but your 'previous life'!"
"Previous life?" Long Yangjun chuckled in amusement. "Are you referring to possession and reincarnation? I've thought of the possibility since a long time ago, but it doesn't make sense. There are many great irregularities with my body that can never be manifested by the local Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector. If I had reincarnated, the best I could expect should be the mutation of my soul. Why would there be drastic changes in my body?
"Besides, you saw with your own eyes that I passed multiple identification tests successfully with this body of mine. It suggests that the relevant information about this body has indeed been stored in the… what did you call it? Right. In the mainframe crystal processor previously. How can you explain that?"
"I have come up with two possibilities."
Li Yao extended his two fingers and said, "Firstly, is it possible that the Nuwa Clan boasted a certain mysterious technique that allowed someone to grow reversely from old to young, from an adult to a child, from a child to an infant, and even from an infant to a fetus or even a zygote?"
Long Yangjun's eyes suddenly shone. "What are the benefits of such a practice?"
" The greatest benefit is that it allows a much longer 'hibernation'!" Li Yao said. "For an adult, especially an unparalleled expert, their body of flesh and blood and their immense soul consume astronomical spiritual energy every second. It is barely possible for them to hibernate for a hundred thousand years!"
It was true that Li Yao had come across a member of the Pangu Clan who came back to life after a hibernation of hundreds of thousands of years on Kunlun.
But that was a very special case. Kunlun had been constructed based on a pulsar, which had been providing energy for it incessantly during the hundreds of thousands of years. That was why the member of the Pangu Clan had been kept alive in the hibernation state.
Under normal circumstances, barely any magical equipment or energy source could allow someone to hibernate for such a long time without damaging their body.
"I know of a special lotus," Li Yao said. "When the environment changes greatly and the weather is too dry for its survival, its seeds will enter a very special 'spore state', where they will be like lifeless pebbles and sleep for tens of thousands of years or even longer until the weather is moist and there is a water source. Then, they will be 'unfrozen' from the spore state and thrive again!
"Perhaps that was the methodology of the Nuwa Clan, too. In the case of an emergency that dictated a long hibernation when there was a lack of sufficient spiritual energy and nutrition, they would force the individuals to enter the 'reverse growth' state, where the individuals would grow from adults into zygotes. Then, they would envelop the zygotes with a unique 'shell', turning them into spores that barely consumed any spiritual energy and nutrition but were extremely sturdy!
"Then, with the tiniest bit of spiritual energy and nutrition, and the room no larger than a fist, the individuals would be able to sleep for hundreds of thousands of years. Wouldn't their chances of survival be greatly improved?
"After hundreds of thousands of years, when the world changes and the dangers are long gone, when enough spiritual energy and nutrition have accumulated, the 'unfreezing' procedure will come. The shell will split apart and release the zygotes, which will develop again in an environment similar to an artificial womb. Just like that, they will be reborn!
"When you grew reversely into a zygote, because your head had completely vanished, most of the information and memories stored in it were naturally lost. That is why you only had certain mottled memory pieces that were displayed in your strange dreams.
"Perhaps, as your brain continues developing, you will find more and more memories in the future, won't you?
"This is the first possibility that I speculated. Are there any questions?"
Long Yangjun was dumbfounded!
"Well…" She hesitated in confusion and at a loss. She seemed to be going crazy as she said, "Wait. You said too much too fast. I need some time to digest it. I need time…"
She was dazed for a long time with her eyes unfocused. Finally, she took a deep breath and smiled bitterly. "Reverse growth, spore state, and second maturation? Did the deities and devils in the primeval era really have such amazing techniques?"
"I don't know," Li Yao replied honestly. "This is just my wild speculation based on the information that you gave me and everything I've seen so far."
"Alright!" Long Yangjun said, still not entirely calm. "Naturally, the truth is still too far away from us to be found out right now, but your speculation does sound reasonable. Why don't you tell me the second possibility?"
"The second possibility shares the same purpose as the first possibility but differs in approach," Li Yao said. "Perhaps the Nuwa Clan did not have such a mysterious technique as 'reverse growth'. However, they might have another amazing method. I wonder, have you ever heard of 'genome duplication'?
"Genome… duplication? What's that?" Long Yangjun was confused.
"To put it simply," Li Yao said, "as long as a hair, a drop of blood, or a fingernail is retrieved from you, it is possible to create a 'clone' that has an identical genome to yours without the slightest difference in any cell!
"Of course, it cannot be a tall and healthy adult like you are right now but a fetus that contains the entirety of your genome. You may find it hard to understand what the genome is, but it doesn't matter. All you need to know that, once the fetus grows up, it will turn into someone exactly the same as you."
