445: Chapter 445 A Mirror Image Cannot Carve the True Body, A Single Peanut Determines the Fate

For that peanut carrying Absolute Mass, a distance of half an inch did not even amount to a thousandth of a breath.

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

When the salted peanut, stained with a hint of yellow wine, struck squarely in the center of that mirror-smooth face, it emitted a dull, sluggish grinding sound.

"Creak—"

It sounded just like a rusty iron file struggling to grind against a stubborn stone that had remained unchanged for ten thousand years.

The movements of the mirror Puppet froze completely at that moment.

Its hand, which had just been raised in an attempt to mimic Zhou Wannian's posture of clasping it behind his back, hung stiffly in mid-air, the paper fibers at its fingertips emitting tiny crackling sounds due to the sudden surge of physical pressure in the air.

On that mirror-like face, which was clear enough to reflect one's image, the reflection of Zhou Wannian that had been clearly visible began to distort violently.

The "Zhou Wannian" in green robes within the mirror began to ripple like water, and was then forcibly torn into irregular black and white spots by the Absolute Mass transmitted through the peanut.

This Puppet could copy Law, could copy sounds, and could even use this mirror—which was neither metal nor jade—to imprint the "Absolute Existence" Aura that Zhou Wannian revealed externally without any alteration.

But it had miscalculated one thing.

Zhou Wannian's weight was not a parameter that could be quantified by numbers, but a philosophical definition not limited by dimensions.

The mirror Puppet tried to bear and copy this mass.

It was like a leaky little bucket made of thin paper trying to contain an entire boundless ocean without spilling a single drop.

The outcome was sealed the moment they made contact.

"Click."

A crisp, dry cracking sound rang out with unusual clarity in this dilapidated wine shop that had regained its sound and color.

Immediately following it was a dense series of "hissing" sounds, like an ice surface bursting open.

Cracks.

Countless tiny white cracks spread wildly from the salted peanut across the smooth mirror face.

The material of the mirror began to peel off, shedding large patches of silvery-gray metal powder; before this powder could even hit the ground, it was ground into nothingness by the residual gravitational fluctuations in the air.

"Looking in a mirror is quite fun."

Zhou Wannian sat by the square wooden table closest to the window, leaning back slightly against the wooden pillar behind him.

There was not a trace of smugness on his handsome face, only an indescribable weariness in his eyes.

"But if you break the mirror while looking at it, there's no fun left.

When mimicking a tiger, you must first check if your own paper is thick enough."

From the mouth of the mirror Puppet, which had cracked open in the reflective material, Zhou Wannian's voice came out once again.

"You mimic me... mimic me..."

This time, the voice was no longer the original relaxed and lazy tone, but was mixed with a large amount of sharp, grating metallic friction, intermittent, like a rusty gramophone skipping tracks frantically.

The cracks on its face grew larger and larger; one could even see through those deep black fissures that there was no flesh and blood inside, only taut lines twisted from gray paper, snapping one by one because they could not withstand the pull of the Absolute Mass.

Zhou Wannian braced himself against the wooden table and stood up unhurriedly.

The old long bench scraped against the dirt floor with a dull "creak."

He did not use any True Qi within his body, nor did he unleash any Immortal Dao Divine Ability that would make the heavens tremble.

He was just like an ordinary scholar who had just finished drinking and was preparing to go for a walk on the street, his hands hanging naturally at his sides, his spotless cyan cloth shoes taking steps as he slowly walked toward the Puppet at the threshold.

With every step he took, the sound of his soles landing on the rammed earth floor seemed exceptionally solid.

Under the pressure of the Absolute Mass, the legs of the straw-cape-wearing Puppet were sinking into the ground bit by bit.

Its toes had already crushed the bluestone bricks on the floor, and dark red mud churned up from the cracks, dirtying its old shoes that were covered in the yellow mud of the official road.

On the dirt floor not far from its feet lay the solid copper coin that had been casually tossed out earlier to freeze time and space.

The dark green pigment on the copper coin was now emitting a nauseating, grayish, eerie light similar to that in the eyes of a dead fish, as its Law had been forcibly shattered.

Zhou Wannian walked to a spot three feet in front of the Puppet.

He lowered his head slightly and glanced at the strange copper coin on the ground.

"Taking the scraps left over from my blacksmithing years ago, casually molding them into a round stamp, you dare to come to a wine shop in the mortal world to force a sale."

Zhou Wannian shook his head, his tone carrying the indifference of a schoolteacher reprimanding a disobedient child.

"This business is not conducted very honorably."

He lifted his right foot.

The sole of his foot, clad in a clean cyan cloth shoe, did not emit any light as it landed plainly upon the solid copper coin.

"Snap."

A crisp, heavy cracking sound rang out.

There were no sparks, no dissipation of energy.

That strange copper coin, which could make an area's "Time Constant Return to Zero" and was regarded as a divine object by both the Truth Realm and The Initial Circle, could not hold out for even a ten-thousandth of a breath the moment it made contact with Zhou Wannian's sole.

The hard brass and those dark green ancient markings instantly turned into the finest metal dust under the physical trampling of the Absolute Mass.

Zhou Wannian lifted his foot; his sole remained clean, not even picking up a single copper flake.

He gently rubbed it against the bluestone brick, completely grinding the pinch of grayish-yellow powder into the yellow mud beneath.

Following the shattering of the copper coin.

The mirror Puppet standing before the threshold convulsed violently.

"Hiss—"

That was the sound of the entire mirror face shattering completely.

Its body, twisted from gray paper and Death Qi threads, lost this copper coin as a dimensional anchor and could no longer maintain a material form in this vibrant mortal world.

The mirror Puppet's legs began to melt first.

This melting was not the charred dryness caused by fire, but an extremely eerie transformation from solid to liquid.

Its mud-caked old shoes, the straw stems of its cape hem, and those broken gray paper lines lost all texture and support in an instant, turning into streams of viscous, dark liquid that flowed slowly along the threshold of the door toward the surroundings.

"Splash."

The bamboo hat hit the ground and also melted along with it.

In just a few breaths of time.

The mysterious visitor, who had been aggressive just moments ago and had attempted to turn the entire wine shop into a grayish-white Death Qi domain, had completely vanished in this warm, noisy spring rain of the mortal world.

It left only a large puddle of blackish-gray turbid water on the rammed earth and bluestone bricks inside and outside the wine shop's threshold.

This settlement was simple and quick.

The old shopkeeper was still fast asleep behind the counter, and the yellow wine on the clay stove was still emitting curling white smoke, as if everything that had just happened was truly just an insignificant interlude in the rain.

But Zhou Wannian stood before that puddle of turbid water, not immediately turning back to his seat.

He closed his eyes slightly and twitched his nose gently.

In this narrow space filled with the smell of grease, the sweet and sour scent of inferior yellow wine, and the smell of the old shopkeeper's foot sweat.

There was a scent drifting out from the ground at the doorway, extremely tenacious and extremely abrupt.

It was not the sour, putrid Death Qi.

It was not the burnt smell of metal.

It was a cool, clean scent of green bamboo, carrying the faint fragrance of earth and the moisture of freshly turned rain.

This scent was too familiar.

So familiar that it made Zhou Wannian's closed eyes envision a sea of emerald green bamboo swaying in the rain within the darkness.

Qingping Realm.

That lower-level fishpond at the very bottom of the starry sea of the heavens, where Spiritual Qi had been exhausted but had regained vitality because of his passing.

That gray-clad youth, "Stone," whom he had struck with the World Origin into his body before leaving, making him the new Realm Lord.

This scent of green bamboo was the most core and pure Aura of the Heavenly Dao Origin of Qingping Realm.

Every living being born in that world had this bamboo scent, carrying the fragrance of earth, branded into the deepest part of their Divine Soul.

Zhou Wannian opened his eyes, and in his deep pupils, two cold glints flashed like substance.

"Before Lao Li died, he said that 'He' was at the very bottom of that Withered Well, weaving a net with Death Qi."

Zhou Wannian's voice was extremely soft, almost inaudible amidst the continuous sound of rain outside the door.

"But I didn't expect your net to be cast so wide that you even stretched your claws into the fishpond I just visited a few days ago."

The green bamboo scent emitted by this puddle of turbid water clearly revealed a fact.

The monster with the mirror face and straw cape from just now had not crossed dimensions directly from Taiwu Ancestral Court.

It had used the Heavenly Dao Origin of Qingping Realm, using the vitality of that world which Zhou Wannian had personally enlightened, as the core catalyst.

The "main entity" at the bottom of the Withered Well had silently thrust its Death Qi tentacles into the soil of Qingping Realm, devouring the vitality there to neutralize its own decay.

Then, it used this polluted vitality and Death Qi to stitch together this mirror Puppet, gave it that copper coin used to freeze time, and followed the traces of Karma all the way to the door of this wine shop in the Jiangnan town.

This was an assassination attempt against Zhou Wannian.

It was even more so a naked, cross-dimensional provocation and mockery.

You, Zhou Wannian, don't you want to be an idler, go for walks, and drink sour wine?

Didn't you casually save a dying world and turn that youth into a new door god?

Then I will deliberately turn the world you saved into a workshop for manufacturing killing machines.

I will turn the Karma you left behind in that world into the sharpest blade stabbing at your face.

"Ding... ding..."

Deep within Zhou Wannian's inner universe, those ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine jade chains once again emitted a rapid, sharp grinding sound.

The warm jade light was slightly scattered.

This was not because the Seal was about to break, but because those chains sensed that the dimensional thread belonging to "Qingping Realm," which Zhou Wannian had personally pulled and held back years ago, was now experiencing a violent trembling that was alarming.

The load-bearing spine was enduring crazy sawing from the outside in those invisible corners.

"Boom!"

An extremely dull thunderclap rolled in from the depths of the high sky.

This thunder was not the kind of muffled thunder common in the spring rain of Jiangnan.

It was heavy, rigid, and carried a sense of spatial dimensional tearing.

The thunder pierced through the thick dark clouds and slammed onto the roofs of the town, shaking the inferior window paper on the wine shop's windows until it rattled.

Zhou Wannian withdrew his thoughts.

He stepped over the puddle of turbid water emitting the bamboo scent on the ground, took a step, and his spotless cyan cloth shoes crossed the wooden threshold of the door, standing on the wet bluestone road outside.

The spring rain filling the sky hit the top of his head, but was forcibly repelled by an invisible mass three feet away from his body.

Zhou Wannian did not look at the thunderclouds in the sky.

He lowered his head slightly, his gaze falling on the two bluestone slabs outside the main threshold that had originally been laid perfectly flat.

There, some rainwater should have been accumulating, refracting the dim light of the street.

But at this moment.

Those two bluestone slabs were gone.

On the ground less than a foot away from the wine shop's door, a circular hole with a diameter of about three feet had appeared.

The edge of the hole was smooth as a mirror, the cut so neat that it didn't have a single burr, as if someone had used the sharpest compass to forcibly gouge a piece out of this space.

Inside this hole, there was no soil, no accumulated water.

Only a bottomless, deep void presenting an absolute pitch-blackness.

That was not an ordinary deep pit, but a "black hole" directly connecting to other dimensions.

"Whoosh... whoosh..."

Bursts of extremely subtle spatial suction force, which could make even the Divine Soul feel a tremor, slowly surged out from this black hole.

The moment the spring rain falling from the sky slammed into this hole, there was no splash upon landing, nor any sound.

Those crystal-clear water droplets submerged directly into that pitch-black void, instantly losing all physical parameters and turning into nothingness.

And in the deepest part of that pitch-blackness.

Faint gray threads, like ten million little gray snakes wriggling in the abyss, were intertwined in the void.

The tips of these threads vaguely connected to the other shore of the Void Realm far away.

And the Aura revealed from that other shore was precisely Qingping Realm.

The assassin on the bright line had already been casually smashed into mud and water on the ground by Zhou Wannian with a peanut stained with yellow wine.

But this tail left behind by the opponent, this dimensional black hole opened at the door of the wine shop, which was emitting spatial suction force.

It was like a silent invitation, quietly waiting for the master's inquiry in front of the wine shop in this Jiangnan town filled with wind and rain.

Zhou Wannian stood in the heavy rain.

His hands still hung naturally at his sides, and his faded green robe fluttered slightly in the wind.

He looked at that bottomless black hole that was swallowing raindrops.

Looking at those gray threads wriggling in the pitch-black depths.

"A perfectly good yard, just swept clean, and you insist on digging such a muddy pit to store water at the entrance."

Zhou Wannian's tone was calm.

His spotless cyan cloth shoes moved forward half a step gently on the water-logged bluestone slabs.

The tip of his shoe was already hovering above the void at the edge of that black hole.

"Since you are so willing to spend the cost, you've almost dismantled this threshold."

The lazy look in Zhou Wannian's eyes was, at this moment, completely covered by a layer of cold, blade-like frigidity.

His right foot, suspended above the black hole, faced that invisible suction force pulling at his Divine Soul and, plainly and simply, stepped down.