443: Chapter 443 A straw raincoat shatters the bluestone water, copper coins buy up all the tea meant for the dying.

After the old man served the tea, seeing that the guest had no intention of making conversation, he sensibly retreated to the side of the stove and continued to squat there to warm himself.

It was just that his single eye would, from time to time, sneak a glance at this person in a coir raincoat who exuded an eccentric aura.

The Traveler slowly extended a hand.

It was a hand that was pale, slender, devoid of the slightest trace of blood, and showed no pores or skin texture.

The skin presented a dull, porcelain-like texture, with slender fingers and distinct knuckles.

This hand lifted the rough porcelain tea bowl on the tabletop.

The scalding tea transmitted heat through the porcelain bowl, but the Traveler's hand did not flinch in the slightest.

He brought the tea bowl beneath the shadow of his bamboo hat and tilted his wrist slightly.

"Gulp."

The sound of swallowing was not obvious amidst the sound of the rain.

The Traveler drank the tea at a slow pace, sip by sip, as if he were savoring some peerless, fine tea.

Yet, he seemed completely unaware of the bitter, earthy taste in the bowl.

One bowl of tea took a full fifteen minutes to drink.

It was only when nothing but a few soaked, swollen tea dregs remained at the bottom of the bowl that the Traveler ceased his movements.

He placed the large, rough porcelain bowl steadily back onto the wooden table.

The bottom of the bowl collided with the tabletop, emitting a dull thud.

Subsequently, that pale hand retracted into the inside of the wide coir raincoat, seemingly fumbling for something.

Hearing the commotion, the old man thought the guest was about to pay, so he hurriedly stood up, wiped his hands indiscriminately on his apron, and approached with a hunched back.

"Guest, although this tea is rough, it quenches thirst. It will be one copper coin."

A smile was piled onto the old man's face, his single eye fixed on the empty tea bowl on the table.

The Traveler's hand reached out from within the coir raincoat.

Between his two fingers, he held an object.

With a slight movement of his wrist, he tossed the object casually onto the rough wooden table.

"Clang."

A crisp metallic collision sound rang out.

This sound was not as heavy as gold or silver, nor was it as dull as an ordinary copper coin; instead, it carried an ethereal, dry quality, as if it were a crisp sound made by tapping on a dry bone.

The old man's gaze immediately fell upon that object.

It was a copper coin.

But when the old man saw the appearance of this copper coin clearly, the smile on his face could not help but stiffen for a moment.

He had set up his tea stall by the imperial road for decades and had received copper coins from various dynasties, privately minted inferior coins, and even broken coins missing a corner.

But this was the first time in his life he had ever seen this particular copper coin.

The surface of this copper coin presented an aged, dark yellow color, and the edges were not smooth, bearing some pitted burrs.

What was most strange was that in the middle of this copper coin, there was neither a square hole for "Heavenly Round and Earthly Square" nor a round hole.

It was a solid copper plate.

And right in the center of the copper plate was carved a mark.

This mark was not a protrusion cast from a mold, but a groove deeply carved into the interior of the copper plate with some kind of Sharp Weapon.

The lines of the mark were filled with a certain dark green pigment, a color that looked just like rotting moss that had not seen sunlight in a gutter for years.

The pattern of the mark was an incomplete ring.

The lines of the ring were broken at the top left, leaving a clear gap.

And in the center of the ring, there was a depression shaped like a teardrop.

This strange, solid copper coin, carved with a dark green mark, lay quietly on the oil-stained wooden table.

It did not emit any dazzling treasure light, nor did it possess any overbearing Spiritual Qi.

But as the old man looked at this copper coin, a chill inexplicably rose in his heart.

The dark green lines seemed to have a bizarre suction, making his only remaining eye uncontrollably want to keep staring at it.

"Guest..." The old man swallowed a mouthful of saliva, his Adam's apple rolling up and down.

He pointed at the copper coin on the table, his tone somewhat hesitant.

"I am old and my eyes are dim, this money... the style of this money is truly rare. My small business, I fear I cannot spend this."

The Traveler sat on the bench, the shadow beneath his bamboo hat remaining heavy.

He did not open his mouth to explain, nor did he have any intention of taking back the copper coin.

That pale hand rested on the edge of the table, motionless.

A gust of cold wind blew, rolling up the rainwater from outside the tea stall and hitting the old man's face.

The old man shivered.

He looked at the torrential rain outside, then at this silent, strange person.

He thought to himself that he would just count it as having made a losing deal; at worst, he would take this broken copper plate to the blacksmith in town and melt it down to sell as scrap copper.

"Fine, since the guest has bestowed it, I will accept."

The old man sighed, extended his rough right hand, which was covered in calluses and frostbite, and reached toward the strange copper coin on the table.

His thin, withered fingers reached out.

His fingertips touched the cold edge of the copper coin, and then, his thumb pressed onto that dark green mark, which looked like an intertwining of an incomplete ring and a teardrop.

It was at this very instant, the moment the old man's finger made physical contact with the mark on the copper coin, that the entire world pressed the stop button.

This was an absolute stillness without any warning.

The instant before the old man's finger touched the copper coin, the area under the tea stall was still full of various vivid sounds and dynamics.

The crackling sound of firewood burning in the stove.

The gurgling sound of boiling water in the copper kettle.

The heavy breathing of the old man.

The flapping sound of the torn oilcloth overhead being ripped by the strong wind.

And, the torrential rain outside the tea stall, covering the sky and earth, making dense sounds as it smashed into the muddy water.

These sounds, these images, were in this instant, erased completely and utterly by an unreasonable, terrifying force.

There was no fading of sound, no slowing of action.

One moment it was a storm, and the next, it was a deathly silence of all things.

The old man's weathered face, full of gullies from years of wind and sun, froze in an expression of slight helplessness and a bitter smile.

His extended hand was tightly pinching that copper coin, the muscle lines on his fingers maintaining the posture of exerting force, yet unable to move even a fraction.

In the stove.

That piece of charred firewood that had just burnt through and was about to fall was suspended in mid-air.

The leaping orange-red flame, like a piece of carved, transparent glazed artwork, was frozen at the moment of its greatest intensity.

The flame had no temperature and no longer emitted heat.

The white steam spraying from the spout of the copper kettle solidified into a strangely shaped cloud, hanging rigidly in the air.

The line of sight expanded outward.

Outside the tea stall.

The strong wind was frozen.

Those branches that had been blown askew by the wind maintained their tilted arcs, and the textures on the leaves were clearly visible.

The spring rain covering the sky was fixed in mid-air.

Countless crystal-clear water droplets, large and small, were densely suspended between heaven and earth.

Some droplets had just smashed into mud puddles, and the crown of mud splashed up had not yet fallen, becoming an inverted mud sculpture.

Some droplets had elongated their bodies, hanging on the edge of the tea stall's dilapidated oilcloth, teetering, but would never fall.

This was not the common "Ice-Sealing Ten Thousand Li" Spell of the Immortals.

If it were an ice Spell, the water droplets would turn into ice, and the flames would be extinguished.

But at this very moment.

The water droplets still had the appearance of being liquid, and the flames were still in the posture of burning.

The reason they did not move was that the physical basis that maintained their movement had been completely drained.

This copper coin, carved with an ancient mark, released a Law force so immense that it made the Divine Soul tremble the moment it was touched by the old man.

This force was like a huge lock, tightly locking the space within a radius of several hundred zhang centered on the tea stall.

It did not change the form of matter.

It simply forcibly reset the "Time Constant" in this area to zero.

In this delineated circle.

Time no longer flowed.

The movement trajectories of all matter, the interaction and transmission of energy, and even the jumping of microscopic particles were all forced into absolute stillness under the pressure of time zeroing.

With the stagnation of time, the colors in this area also began to fade rapidly.

The orange-red light of the stove, the green of the leaves, the dullness of the old man's skin tone.

All colors were stripped away in a single breath, and the entire world became a monotonous scroll of only black, white, and gray.

This scroll exuded an intense Death Qi.

This Death Qi carried no smell of blood, no stench of rot; it was clean to the point of despair, pure to the point of suffocation.

That was the Death Qi Law belonging to the bottom of the Taiwu Ancestral Court, in the depths of that Withered Well abyss, where all things return to zero, the heat death of the Universe.

The monster hiding at the bottom of the Withered Well compressed this Origin Law force into a pale cyan tear, mixed it into the mud of the Qingping Realm Heavenly Dao mutation, and finally cast this weird copper coin.

It gave this copper coin to the Traveler in the coir raincoat before him, crossed endless dimensions, and felt its way all the way to the outskirts of this Jiangnan town.

In this gray-white, still scroll.

The only thing still moving was the Traveler in the coir raincoat sitting on the bench.

He slowly stood up.

The long bench did not make any sound.

The Traveler's tall figure appeared particularly abrupt against the gray-white background.

He extended that pale hand and gently pulled the solid copper coin back from the old man's stiff fingers.

After the copper coin left the old man's hand, the Law of time zeroing did not dissipate; instead, it seemed to be branded onto this space, continuously maintaining this dead zone.

The Traveler put the copper coin back into the inside of his coir raincoat.

He turned around, facing the muddy imperial road leading to the Jiangnan town.

Beneath the bamboo hat, those eyes, which had no whites and were pure black, pierced through the sky full of still gray raindrops and looked in the direction of the town.

He did not look at the frozen old man, nor did he linger at this simple tea stall.

He took a step and walked out of the cover of the tea stall's tattered oilcloth.

With one step, he walked into the frozen rain curtain.

The Traveler's body seemed not to belong to this dimension.

He walked among the densely packed, still water droplets, and those raindrops suspended in mid-air, the moment they were about to touch the three-foot range of his body, actually slid aside silently as if they had life.

There was no collision, no rupture.

After those raindrops left the three-foot range of his body, they returned to their original suspended positions.

On his coir raincoat, not a single drop of new rainwater was added.

He trekked through the yellow mud puddles everywhere, his shoe soles stepping on those solidified mud crowns; the mud was not flattened, but instead, like hard rock, supported his weight.

He walked steadily forward in this gray-white, dead, still scroll.

After walking out several hundred zhang.

An invisible boundary appeared before his eyes.

On this side of the boundary was the gray dead zone that had lost its color and where time had been zeroed.

The suspended raindrops were like strings of still beads.

On the other side of the boundary was the lively, noisy, and colorful human world.

Rainwater was pouring down crazily, and trees were swaying in the strong wind.

Yellow mud was flowing on the road surface, and the distant green mountains were looming in the rain curtain.

The Traveler did not hesitate; he lifted his right foot, passed through this invisible boundary, and stepped onto the muddy imperial road outside the limit.

"Splat."

A crisp sound of shoe soles crushing the mud in the puddle rang out clearly in the Traveler's ears.

Colors instantly returned to his field of vision.

The strong wind, carrying the cold spring rain, rushed toward his face without any obstruction.

But those raindrops were still forcibly twisted in their trajectory by an invisible repulsive force three feet away from his body, sliding into the mud along an unseen arc.

He walked in this storm, yet not a single leaf touched his body.

The humble tea stall behind him, along with the old man serving tea and the motionless charcoal fire in the stove, had been left forever within that gray-white circle, becoming a grave forgotten by time.

The traveler stepped through the mud.

The muddy water made a continuous splashing sound under his feet.

His pace was even and rigid, with the distance of every step being exactly the same.

Just like a clockwork puppet with pre-programmed motions, he advanced toward his target tirelessly.

Following this winding imperial road, he walked past rolling hills and desolate fields.

In the distance, the outline of a Jiangnan town with white walls and black tiles gradually became clear through the curtain of rain.

Rows of black roof tiles, and stone arch bridges spanning the waterways.

In the traveler's pure black eyes, there was no leisure or inclination to admire this water town scenery.

His gaze pierced through layers of rain and the scattered buildings of the town, locking precisely onto a dilapidated wine shop built by the river at the edge of the town.

Outside that wine shop, a crooked bamboo pole was hoisted, with a faded, coarse cloth banner bearing the character "Wine" hanging limply in the wind and rain.

Killing intent.

Killing intent, tangible as substance, slowly radiated from the traveler in the coir raincoat.

This killing intent carried no emotional color, no hatred, and no anger.

It was like an iron ruler, honed to extreme sharpness, meant to measure and cut off the outlier that did not conform to the rules.

The traveler walked to the edge of the town.

The road beneath his feet changed from the pitted yellow earth imperial road to a smooth, polished bluestone path.

The sound of his shoe soles rubbing against the road changed from the sticky "splat" sound to a crisp "tap, tap" sound.

The spring rain hit the surrounding bluestone, gathering into thin trickles of water that flowed along the gaps between the stones toward the river.

The traveler stepped through the puddles on the bluestone path.

Splashes of water sprayed to the sides, but they could never reach his dusty pant legs.

He did not look at the dwellings by the roadside with doors and windows tightly shut against the rain, nor did he pay attention to the occasional dog barking from under the eaves.

Step by step, he walked through the town's bluestone water, accompanied by the spring rain filling the sky, approaching the gate of that dilapidated wine shop at a steady, unhurried pace.

On the town's bluestone road, rainwater gathered into trickles, flowing along the moss-covered gaps between the stones toward the lower-lying river.

Raindrops struck the black tiles of the eaves, shattering into clouds of white mist, shrouding this water town in a hazy, misty rain.

The light inside the wine shop was dim.

In the small clay stove used for warming wine, the charcoal fire was burning vigorously.

A few dark red sparks flickered at the bottom of the stove, following the occasional cross-breeze.

A coarse porcelain wine pot sat on the iron rack, and a wisp of white smoke, carrying the sweet-sour scent of distiller's grains and the richness of aged wine, drifted from the spout.

The old shopkeeper had his hands tucked into the sleeves of his gray cloth short jacket, his head nodding as he dozed off.

On the counter lay an old, slick abacus, with the warmth of fingers still lingering on the beads.

Zhou Wannian sat at the square wooden table closest to the window.

His washed-out blue cloth robe felt dry, a stark contrast to the damp cold outside.

He rested one hand on the dust-covered tabletop, two slender, fair fingers pinching a shelled salted peanut, but he was in no hurry to put it into his mouth.

His eyes, deep as a cold pool, were calmly watching the street scene outside the window, blurred by the rain.

"Tap."

"Tap."

A steady, rigid, and crisp sound of footsteps pierced through the dense curtain of rain, traveling along the bluestone path at an unhurried pace.

These footsteps carried a strange, monotonous dryness.

The volume and interval of each contact between the shoe soles and the stone slabs seemed to be cast from the same mold; one could not hear any rhythmic changes that would typically come from a living person's breathing or fatigue while walking.

The fingers of Zhou Wannian holding the peanut paused slightly.

He did not turn his head; his gaze remained fixed on the layers of rain outside the window.

The figure clad in a heavy coir raincoat and wearing a wide bamboo hat had already reached the door of the wine shop.

The coir raincoat was stained with yellow mud from the imperial road outside the city, but the rainwater falling from the sky, upon nearing within three feet of this figure, defied the common sense of gravity and slid away along an invisible curved surface.

The traveler stopped at the threshold of the wine shop.

He lifted the foot wearing an old cloth shoe, the sides of which were not stained by a single drop of water from the town's bluestone path.

The sole of his shoe stepped steadily over the wooden threshold, polished smooth and round by the passage of time, and landed on the floor of the wine shop, a mix of rammed earth and blue bricks.

And it was at that very instant when that one foot stepped into the wine shop.

An invisible, intangible, yet heavy Death Qi Law capable of collapsing dimensions, with the traveler as the center, surged and spread outward.

This was not a Formation that sealed space like those in the Immortal Realm, nor was it some kind of ice Spell capable of freezing people into ice sculptures.

This was a brutal force that directly erased the underlying physical operating Laws of this area.

Sitting at the wooden table, Zhou Wannian clearly felt the terrifying anomaly occurring in the surrounding environment.

The first to bear the brunt was sound.

The clamorous sound of rain hitting the eaves outside, the creaking of the black-awning boat swaying with the waves in the river, and the dog barking in the distant alley were all cut off instantly by an invisible pair of scissors the moment the traveler set foot inside.

Inside the wine shop, the crackling sound of the charcoal fire burning in the small clay stove ceased abruptly.

The old shopkeeper's light, long snoring sound also got stuck halfway, with no subsequent airflow exhaled.

An absolute silence, like a heavy, suffocating piece of wet cotton, tightly smothered this small space.

Immediately following this was the fading of color and temperature.

The dark red charcoal fire in the clay stove lost its original luster, turning into lifeless gray stones.

The flames solidified in mid-air, presenting a rigid, transparent, glass-like texture.

The white smoke rising from the coarse porcelain wine pot turned into a stiff mass of gray cotton wool, suspended above the spout.

The old shopkeeper lay on the counter, his face turned gray-white, and every gray hair on his scalp was frozen in place.

He became a vivid, lifelike clay statue.

Zhou Wannian turned his head slightly, his gaze looking toward the open door of the wine shop.

Outside the door, the Jiangnan spring rain falling across the sky presented a spectacular scene that made one's scalp tingle.

Countless crystal-clear water droplets, large and small, were densely suspended in mid-air.

They filled every gap in the space outside the wine shop's door, extending from the eaves down to the bluestone on the ground.

These boundless, motionless raindrops formed an impassable, thick, transparent water curtain at the door of the wine shop.

Light passing through these solidified water droplets underwent chaotic refraction, twisting the street scene outside into bizarre fragments.

This water curtain completely isolated the gray-white dead zone inside the wine shop from the still-vibrant world outside.

The Death Qi Law from the bottom of the Withered Well abyss had descended into this shop filled with grease and the smell of wine.

Forcing the "time constant" in this area to zero.

In this silent painting that had lost its color, sound, and where time had ceased to flow.

The traveler in the coir raincoat slowly withdrew the leg that had stepped over the threshold, and stood completely still on the floor of the wine shop.

His eyes, hidden under the shadow of the wide bamboo hat, seemed to scan the room that had been completely frozen by him.

Finally, he locked his attention on Zhou Wannian, who was sitting by the window in a blue robe.

Zhou Wannian was not frozen.

The ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine jade chains within his body were like the fixed-sea needle rooted in the bedrock at the very bottom of the Universe.

The Law of the time constant returning to zero washed over these warm, white jade chains, unable to stir even a single ripple.

He himself was an Origin point undefined by any external dimensions or Laws.

In this gray-white, motionless world, Zhou Wannian's washed-out blue cloth robe still retained its faint blue color.

The salted peanut in his hand still showed its full red skin texture.

The traveler looked at Zhou Wannian without speaking.

He slowly raised his two hands, which were pale, slender, and devoid of blood color or pore texture.

He reached his hands up to his head, pinching the strap of the wide bamboo hat.

His slender fingers moved mechanically, untying the strap and taking the bamboo hat off his head.

The moment the bamboo hat left his hand, it was captured by the Law of time returning to zero, frozen in mid-air, unable to fall any further.

The traveler's face was completely exposed to the dim, rigid light of the wine shop.

Zhou Wannian leaned back on the long wooden bench, looking at that face; on his face, which was always calm and unruffled, there was not much surprise, only his eyebrows raised slightly in a small arc.

That could not be called a face at all.

There were no eyebrows, no eyes, no ridge of a nose, and no outline of lips.

Above the traveler's pale neck was an oval-shaped, smooth mirror surface, polished to a high shine.

The material of the mirror surface was neither gold nor jade, exuding a cold, deep luster, as if it could suck a person's Divine Soul inside.

A monster without facial features.

A mirror face.

The traveler stood in place, the hem of his coir raincoat still stained with mud from the imperial road.

He pointed that smooth mirror surface directly at Zhou Wannian sitting by the window.

A silent confrontation unfolded in this wine shop sealed off by the water curtain.

Zhou Wannian sat by the wooden table, his eyes, deep as a cold pool, quietly gazing at that mirror surface.

On that smooth, cold mirror surface, Zhou Wannian saw himself.

The reflection in the mirror was wearing a washed-out blue cloth robe, one hand resting on the tabletop, two fingers pinching a red-skinned peanut.

That handsome face revealed the same leisure and laziness as always.

The reflection was incredibly clear, and even a tiny thread on the corner of the blue robe was replicated perfectly.

However, this was not an ordinary act of looking in a mirror.

In Zhou Wannian's Great Perfection perception, when his image fell onto the other party's mirror face.

A subtle, viscous, sickening assimilation power, like that from the very bottom of the Withered Well abyss, was trying to seep out from that mirror along the convergence of their gazes.

This monster was attempting to analyze him.

It was trying to copy his movements, his expressions, and even the aura of "absolute existence" returning to simplicity that he radiated.

Suddenly.

The smooth mirror surface rippled with subtle water waves.

The originally flat mirror surface actually bulged outward and indented inward based on the facial contours of Zhou Wannian's reflection.

The shape of his eyebrows was outlined, the prominence of his nose bridge was imitated, and a thin pair of lips cracked open in the lower half of the mirror surface.

In just a few breaths' time.

On that mirror face which originally had no features, a face exactly like Zhou Wannian's had grown out of thin air!