429: Chapter 429 Three Cups of Wine to Toast the Passing Years, A Tale of Bygone Days

Chapter 427: Three Cups of Muddy Wine to Honor the Years, An Old Tale of Farming Life

"Go, call out the master who is hiding inside painting."

Zhou Wannian's calm voice rippled through the dilapidated tavern, which was filled with the smell of mildew and Death Qi.

In front of the counter, the paper figure with two rigid red blushes painted on its face stood still. Within its black hollow sockets, dotted with low-quality ink, there wasn't the slightest emotional fluctuation expected of a living thing; it just stared straight at Zhou Wannian.

The surrounding air seemed to solidify into substance. On the corner of the counter, the flickering ghostly green flame on the wick of a worn-out coarse porcelain oil lamp shook violently, stretching the paper figure's shadow against the peeling wall into a clawing, monstrous shape.

The paper figure did not obey the command to turn and walk into the dim back hall.

A faint sound of bamboo strips rubbing together came from its neck, and the pale paper-mache head lowered slightly. Immediately after, the paper figure's mouth, which was originally just a straight ink line, suddenly tore open from the middle toward both sides.

"Sizzle—"

The sound of paper tearing was exceptionally piercing in the silence.

A pitch-black hole appeared on the paper figure's face, replacing the original mouth. From deep within that hole, a raspy voice emerged, sounding as if two dried leaves were being rubbed together desperately in the wind.

"The master cannot come out."

The voice was dry and hollow, carrying a decayed scent of something that hadn't seen the light of day for years. It showed no fear despite Zhou Wannian's all-crushing Absolute Mass; it was merely stating a fact in a flat tone.

"Master of Creation, those ninety-thousand-plus Bronze Shackles you personally set have locked this dry well into a dead end. The master is suppressed at the very bottom of the abyss, unable to even turn over, let alone have the ability to come out and greet a guest."

Zhou Wannian stood by the long bench, looking at this paper-mache thing that had suddenly started speaking.

No look of surprise appeared on his handsome face. His gaze swept over the torn paper mouth, and he slightly curled the corners of his lips, letting out a short, light chuckle.

"If you can't come out yourself, you set up a paper Puppet here to run a stall selling poisoned water." Zhou Wannian shook his head. "This way of treating guests has certainly regressed the longer you've lived."

He shook the hem of his faded blue cloth robe and sat down again on the long bench covered in wooden splinters.

The old bench let out a tooth-aching creak.

Zhou Wannian propped one hand on the dust-covered tabletop and casually pushed aside the bowl of poisoned wine, which had been solidified into a murky solid by the Great Perfection Space Law.

Accompanied by the light sound of the coarse porcelain bowl rubbing against the wooden tabletop, his other hand reached into his wide sleeve.

When his hand emerged again, his palm held a palm-sized earthenware wine gourd wrapped in an old red cloth. This was exactly the gourd of low-quality rice wine he had casually bought in an alleyway of a Jiangnan town during a dense spring rain before coming here.

He pulled out the stopper.

A scent of rice wine, carrying the fragrance of freshly turned soil mixed with the sweet and sour smell of wine dregs, drifted out from the mouth of the gourd.

This scent, carrying the strong mundane atmosphere of the Lower Realm, instantly spread through the dilapidated tavern filled with Death Qi and mildew, forcibly dispelling some of the marrow-chilling cold.

Zhou Wannian tilted his wrist slightly, and the clear, slightly yellowish wine poured from the gourd's mouth, falling into a chipped porcelain cup abandoned by someone on the table, making a crisp, tinkling sound.

The wine was poured seven-tenths full.

Zhou Wannian set down the gourd and picked up the cup of muddy wine that emitted a sweet and sour aroma.

"Since the master cannot come out, you, as the Paper Tongue, should at least know some news." Zhou Wannian held the wine cup, his gaze passing through the ghostly green firelight to land on the paper figure.

He tilted his head back and took a large gulp of the clear, tart rice wine in the cup.

The slightly cool liquid slid down his throat into his stomach, turning into a mass of lukewarm warmth.

"Speak." Zhou Wannian set down the wine cup, his eyes carrying the leisure of a listener at a storytelling session. "Through your mouth, what old, trivial family matters does that master want to chat about with a passerby like me?"

The paper figure stood stiffly in front of the counter, its torn paper mouth opening and closing as the raspy, rubbing voice sounded again.

"The night is long, and the years are vast. Master of Creation, ever since you left after sealing those layers of shackles, the time at the bottom of this dry well has become an incomprehensible mess."

The paper figure's voice was devoid of emotion, yet it slowly unfolded a hidden secret of the old days, buried deep in the river of time, before Zhou Wannian through its dry tone.

The Taiwu Ancestral Court was not originally a pure land of death. Countless ages ago, this place was an experimental outpost used by many ancient civilizations to observe the edge of the Universe.

When Zhou Wannian, disgusted by the pungent Death Qi, laid down those ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine chains, this region completely lost contact with the external cycle of Laws.

The gates were welded shut, and the living water in the well turned into stagnant water.

"Life was severed, and Death Qi flowed back in." The paper figure's head swayed slightly. "Those ancient remnant souls, experimental subjects, and even the plants and trees trapped at the bottom of the well began a long process of mutual devouring just to linger on in this absolute silence."

It was a cruel slaughter with no alternation of sun and moon, and no onlookers.

There was no morality, no Cultivation Technique, only the purest instinct for survival. Death Qi became the only nutrient, and devouring one's own kind became the only way to live.

In this long meat grinder, all ancient wills were crushed and merged.

Ultimately, at the very bottom of the abyss, from the mountain of corpses and the thick Death Qi that had precipitated to the extreme, a new will was born.

It was a behemoth stitched together from countless remnant souls, controlling the Death Qi Laws of the entire dry well. It devoured the previous sovereignty and proclaimed itself the new emperor of this forbidden zone of life. It was the 'master' the paper figure spoke of.

"After the master woke up, it wanted to break open the dry well to see the sky outside." The paper figure's painted red cheeks looked increasingly eerie under the green light. "It exhausted its Death Qi to strike the bronze chains you left behind. But those shackles are as heavy as the heavens; when the master's strength hit them, not even an echo could be heard."

Zhou Wannian leaned against a wooden pillar, his fingers playing with the earthenware wine gourd.

He listened quietly to the paper figure's narration, his face showing not a hint of pity. Locking a bunch of dying fellows in a jar until only one Gu King survived—this kind of drama wasn't exactly new in the All Heavens and Myriad Worlds.

"Unable to get out, the master began to ponder other ways." The paper figure continued, its dry arm slowly lifting to point at the dark green, incomplete circular mark on its back.

"The chains locked the physical form, but they couldn't lock the tiny thoughts that escaped through the cracks. The master split its own will into countless seeds and scattered them through those tiny dimensional rifts toward the vast fishponds of the Lower Realm."

Hearing this, Zhou Wannian's eyes lifted slightly.

"The boy named Shitou in the Qingping Realm is the result of one of those seeds taking root and sprouting." Zhou Wannian took over the conversation, his tone level.

The paper figure nodded, the bamboo strips at its neck making a clicking sound.

"Yes. The master needs vitality—the weak but pure vitality of the Lower Realm's Heavenly Dao—to neutralize the Death Qi within its body that is so heavy it's about to crush it. That mark is a coordinate and also a channel to draw water into the well." The paper figure's mouth opened and closed. "The same mark is painted on this paper-mache skin because this skin is also an extension of the master's will."

Zhou Wannian picked up the chipped porcelain cup and tilted the gourd again, pouring himself a second cup of rice wine.

The liquid rippled in the cup, reflecting the dim, dilapidated eaves above.

"A bunch of maggots rotting in a vat, biting each other, and finally the biggest one gives itself the title of emperor." Zhou Wannian raised the wine cup to his lips. "Unable to leave the house, it throws bait out through the cracks in the door, hoping those blind fish rolling in the mud can gnaw through the threshold."

He tilted his head back and drank this second cup of muddy wine.

Swallowing the wine, Zhou Wannian slammed the cup heavily onto the tabletop.

The wooden table vibrated, and dust rustled down.

"However, your master went to great lengths to set up this paper-thin thing outside the door and serve a bowl of poisoned water, definitely not to reminisce with an old passerby like me."

Zhou Wannian's calm eyes pierced through the paper man's face.

"Since it's struggling even to turn over now, where does it get the nerve to provoke me? Speak, what is it afraid of? Or does it want to use my hand to block some life-taking calamity?"

Inside the tavern, the eerie green oil lamp flame flickered violently.

Under Zhou Wannian's gaze that seemed to see through everything, the paper man's stiff body began to tremble involuntarily. Not just it, but the surrounding silent gray mist, the bluestone slabs on the ground, and even this dilapidated wooden house vibrated slightly along with the paper man's tremors.

It was a fear originating from the deepest part of the Divine Soul, transmitted through the paper man's shell.

The paper man's paper mouth opened to its limit, its voice becoming sharp and intermittent.

"It's coming... they're coming..."

Zhou Wannian's brow twitched slightly: "Who?"

"The The Initial Circle."

When the paper man uttered these four words, the dryness in its voice turned into a tremor on the verge of collapse, and even the pigment on the two red spots on its face began to fall off in flakes.

Zhou Wannian leaned back on the long bench, his fingers lightly stroking the edge of the coarse ceramic wine cup.

This was a name he had never heard before.

Strolling through endless dimensions, he had seen the Immortal Dao orthodoxy that focused on Formation counters, Demonic Path giants who sacrificed flesh and blood, and had just personally dismantled the entire Absolute Truth Realm that treated the Universe like beads on an abacus.

But this "The Initial Circle," just hearing the name, carried a stiff scent of rules.

"Master of Creation, you shattered the Heaven-Reaching Bone Tower of the Truth Realm, triggering a dimensional storm. This commotion has drawn them here." The paper man's body shook violently, and the dark green mark behind it even seeped a few drops of black liquid.

"What's their deal? Are they with those tin cans outside?" Zhou Wannian asked nonchalantly.

"No... they aren't tin... they don't want data, and they don't follow logic." The paper man's arms waved wildly in the air, seemingly trying desperately to gesture a shape, "They are a bunch of lunatics. They only recognize rules."

As the paper man spoke, a terrifying picture hidden in the deepest parts of the myriad worlds that made one's marrow run cold gradually took shape in the tavern.

If the Absolute Truth Realm tried to analyze everything in the Universe with mathematical formulas and quantify all life as resources...

Then the "The Initial Circle" was a group of Cleaners wandering outside the dimensions.

They had no specific form, or rather, their form was always an absolutely closed loop. In their dogma, the operation of the Universe must be seamless and connected from beginning to end. No beginning, no end; all things must cycle within this circle.

Any existence that tried to break this circle or jump out of this cycle was, in their eyes, an unforgivable variable.

Cultivators going Heaven-Defying to change their fate? They didn't care, because that was still within the circle of life, death, and Reincarnation.

The Truth Realm tampering with physical constants? They didn't care, because the Truth Realm would eventually head towards heat death within the circle of energy conservation.

But there was one thing they had to eradicate.

"Variables... those variables that cannot be framed by rules and will burst the circle." The paper man's voice grew weaker, as if it would be torn apart by that fear at any moment. "The master swallowed all the remnant souls at the bottom of the dry well, evolving Death Qi and vitality that doesn't belong to this era, becoming a variable. So they set their sights on the dry well."

The paper man's hollow black ink eye sockets stared straight at Zhou Wannian.

"But now, they aren't watching the dry well. Master of Creation, they've set their sights on you."

Hearing this, Zhou Wannian's finger on the table stopped its stroking.

He looked at the trembling paper man, the mocking smile at the corner of his mouth becoming more pronounced.

"Set their sights on me?"

"Your existence has no source and no end." Cracks began to appear on the paper man's body, revealing a pale white glimmer from within. "The Absolute Mass on your body violates all cycles. You are an abrupt breakpoint, a nail that has forcibly smashed open the ring. They want to flatten you and integrate you into that damn circle."

Zhou Wannian didn't speak.

He lifted the clay wine gourd and poured the last bit of wine into the chipped ceramic cup.

The rice wine entered the cup, creating a few subtle ripples.

The Truth Realm wanted to calculate his background, and their abacus broke. Now some "The Initial Circle" has popped up, wanting to use a compass to frame him inside.

These high-and-mighty things always seemed to like using their own self-made rulers to measure the feet of every passerby.

Zhou Wannian picked up this third cup of wine.

"These things that act like kings and tyrants at the bottom of a broken well have certainly calculated well." Zhou Wannian looked at the cloudy wine in the cup, his steady voice echoing in the tavern. "Knowing they can't withstand the eradication of those Cleaners, they pushed me—the one who locked things up back then—to the front to take the hit."

He tilted his head back.

And drained the wine in the cup in one gulp.

The first cup was to the years; the time under that dry well stank like rotting mud.

The second cup was to mundane affairs; listening to an old story of a dead thing seeking survival and spreading seeds.

This third cup...

Zhou Wannian set down the wine cup and tapped his knuckles twice on the table.

The bottom of the cup and the wooden table collided with a dull thud.

At the moment that dull thud sounded.

On the bluestone road outside the tavern, the originally dead gray mist suddenly froze.

It wasn't blown away by the wind, but was forcibly frozen in mid-air by an indisputable force.

The surrounding light quickly shifted from that dull leaden gray to a pure, blindingly bright white without any Impurities.

This bright white carried a suffocating sense of order.

All lines and contours were forcibly pulled into arcs under this white light. Even the crooked bamboo pole in front of the tavern was forcibly bent into a semicircle under the illumination of the white light.

An absolutely closed sense of pressure that allowed no overflow converged from all directions toward this dilapidated tavern.

At the counter, the pale paper man let out a shrill scream.

Its painted facial features quickly dissolved in the white light, and its bamboo frame snapped inch by inch.

"They're here... they're going to draw everything into circles..."

The paper man's voice was swallowed by the white light, and its entire shell instantly ignited with a heatless white flame. In the blink of an eye, it turned into a small pile of white ash that scattered with the wind, and even the dark green mark on its back was wiped clean.

Zhou Wannian sat on the long bench.

He looked at the pile of ash left by the paper man behind the counter, then turned to look at the street outside that was distorted into a circle by the white light.

He didn't panic, nor did he reach for that non-existent longsword.

He simply fished out two copper coins covered in verdigris from his sleeve and casually tossed them next to the empty clay wine gourd.

The copper coins rolled twice on the table and came to a steady stop.

"The wine is finished, and I've heard enough of the story."

Zhou Wannian stood up, his hands naturally clasped behind his back, and brushed the hem of his green robe.

Facing the blinding, closed, dazzling white light that tried to encompass everything outside the door, he took a step and crossed the dilapidated wooden threshold of the tavern.

"When I go for a walk, I've never liked walking in circles drawn by others."

Zhou Wannian walked on the bluestone road, looking at the several blurred circular outlines slowly emerging in the depths of the white light. The idle smile at the corner of his mouth turned into a blade-like coldness.

"Since you've come to my door with a compass..."

His green-robed figure pulled a straight silhouette in the white light, like a sharp sword piercing the sky.

"Then I will personally smash your circle to pieces."