476: Chapter 475 Crossing the Ancient Crimson Gate Again, Spring Has Already Bringed to the Dry Well

On the dilapidated wooden table, that coarse porcelain wine bowl, chipped in a few places, still emitted a wisp of curling white steam.

The turbid, yellowish wine swayed slightly at the bottom of the bowl, reflecting the drizzling Jiangnan spring rain outside the window. The Old Shopkeeper grumbled while wiping the counter, complaining about this abnormal late spring chill, but in the end, he still didn't dare to add an extra ladle of water from the Withered Well to the wine.

Zhou Wannian picked up a boiled, softened salted peanut and tossed it into his mouth.

"Smack, smack."

The savory flavor melted on the tip of his tongue, mixed with the over-fermented sourness of the yellow wine. As he swallowed, it turned into a most reassuring warmth that slowly spread through his internal organs.

He did not use any Law to dispel the drunkenness, letting a hint of a tipsy flush creep onto his cheeks.

Listening to the sound of rain hitting the bluestone slabs outside the window and the crisp clacking of the Old Shopkeeper's abacus beads, Zhou Wannian leaned back against the paint-peeling wooden chair and let out a long sigh.

The life and death of the gods and Buddhas filling the sky, the birth, destruction, and heat death of this Universe.

In the end, none of it compared to this mouthful of warm, inferior wine, which could soothe this skeleton that had carried the heavy burden in the void for millions of years, making it feel perfectly comfortable.

However.

Although the wine was satisfying, Zhou Wannian's deep eyes looked through the half-open wooden window of the wine shop, piercing through the misty spring rain, and gazing toward a place that was extremely far away and no longer within this dimension.

"The roof has been torn off, the rules have been smashed, and the trash has been swept clean."

He picked up the coarse porcelain wine bowl from the table, downed the last drop of yellow wine, and casually slapped two copper coins stained with a bit of mud onto the greasy tabletop.

"But I still have to go see what the pit dug for the foundation back then looks like now."

Zhou Wannian stood up and brushed the wrinkles from the hem of his green shirt.

He ignored the Old Shopkeeper's polite "Take care, customer" call from behind him, and with steps in his green cloth shoes, he walked out the back door of the wine shop.

Outside the back door was a narrow, dead-end alley covered in slippery moss.

Facing the dense spring rain, Zhou Wannian walked forward, hands casually crossed behind his back, taking a plain and simple step.

"Hum."

As this step landed, it did not splash mud in the puddle.

The space beneath Zhou Wannian's feet was like a water mirror into which a stone had been thrown, rippling with a circle of extremely gentle, transparent waves. At this moment, the Great Perfection Space Law was no longer an absolute violence used to smash copper coins, but had transformed into the most stable bridge in the world.

Spring rain, the alley, the wine shop.

These scenes instantly faded from his sight like a washed-out ink painting.

The moment his suspended green cloth shoe fell again and landed firmly on the ground.

The sensation from the soles of his feet made a rare look of surprise appear on Zhou Wannian's usually calm and handsome face.

It was soft.

It was actually soft.

He lowered his head slightly.

In his memory, this central plain of the Taiwu Ancestral Court was formed by the compression of ruins from countless destroyed Great Worlds, and the ground was so hard that even the full-strength blow of a Creation Immortal King could not leave a white mark.

Later, it was covered with the wreckage of Truth Realm warships, as well as fragments of countless white jade chains he had left behind to suppress the Death Qi.

It should have been a desolate ruin filled with cold, dead silence, and hard, mixed white jade and scrap metal.

But now.

Beneath his green cloth shoes was not cold white jade wreckage, nor sharp metal debris.

Instead, it was a layer of shallow, fine, and incredibly tender-looking... green grass.

Zhou Wannian squatted down, reached out his slender, fair fingers, and gently brushed against that layer of shallow grass.

The sensation from his fingertips carried a hint of cool moisture. The grass blades were soft, even somewhat delicate, but within this delicacy lay an unreasonable resilience, a determination to take root in the deepest part of this Universe.

He pinched a bit of soil and sniffed it at the tip of his nose.

Gone was the sour, rotten smell of aged corpses that once filled the Taiwu Ancestral Court, and gone was the Death Qi that could freeze one's Divine Soul.

This was a scent of extremely pure, freshly turned soil, mixed with the faint fragrance of newly sprouted vegetation.

"Interesting."

Zhou Wannian stood up and cast his gaze around.

This Taiwu Ancestral Court, once known as the most terrifying Forbidden Ground in All Heavens and Myriad Worlds, had now completely changed its appearance.

The sky was no longer that oppressive, despairing gray-white. There was no longer the inverted waterfall of Death Qi, nor the shroud of that black whetstone. The endless high-dimensional deep space above, through the opening left by the shattered copper coins, cast down a soft, clear starlight.

Under the starlight.

On this vast, boundless plain, those once-broken white jade chain remains and those cold Truth Realm warship fragments...

...at this moment, having lost the suppression of the Law of Dead Silence, were undergoing incredible weathering and decomposition during the natural process of the world's re-evolution and the convergence of clear and turbid Qi.

Large pieces of white jade rubble were covered in fine, emerald green vines. The roots of these vines dug into the crevices of the jade, secreting a strange, vital acid that slowly melted these indestructible jade stones, turning them into top-tier spiritual soil that nourished this land.

The mechanical remains of the Truth Realm, which represented absolute rationality, were already covered in reddish-brown rust. Some unknown spore plants, emitting a faint fluorescence, bloomed into umbrella-shaped, translucent little flowers under the cover of this rust.

At a glance.

How could this still be the dead land of the Myriad Worlds' return to ruins? This was clearly a blessed land, greedily absorbing the energy of the Universe's inception and nurturing endless vitality!

Zhou Wannian walked forward unhurriedly, hands behind his back, stepping on that layer of shallow green grass.

The wind blew, whipping up the rustling sound of grass blades rubbing against each other. Listening to this sound was like hearing the steady breathing of a baby in a cradle, making one feel an inexplicable sense of relaxation deep in their bones.

As he walked, Zhou Wannian's footsteps paused.

He looked up toward the end of the plain, looking at that landmark that once blocked the path in front of the core area of the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

That archaic gate, ten thousand zhang high, dark red all over, and covered with ancient totems and dried bloodstains.

In Zhou Wannian's memory.

That gate was a monument of death. The resentment and killing intent emanating from it had once caused countless mighty figures who attempted to explore the truth of the Universe to perish outside its gates. Back then, to enter, he had unceremoniously smashed that broken gate open with a rusty iron lock.

But now, what appeared at the end of Zhou Wannian's vision...

...where was there any archaic dark red gate?

Under the illumination of the starlight.

That ten-thousand-zhang-high metal gate had, unknowingly, undergone a material reorganization of immense proportions.

The original two straight, cold door panels had lost their metallic luster and sharp edges under the washing of time and the infiltration of endless vitality. The dried bloodstains had turned into fertile red soil; the totems carved with patterns of defeated gods and demons had become natural texture folds on the rock wall.

Looking from afar.

That ten-thousand-zhang-high gate had completely transformed into a towering, continuous green mountain.

The two door panels had become two steep, confronting mountain peaks.

And that huge gap originally used to open the gate had evolved into a deep, emerald green canyon.

"Clatter... splash!"

A faint rumbling sound of water came from the depths of the canyon.

Zhou Wannian's Great Perfection vision penetrated the obstruction of distance.

He saw that at the location where the gate's copper rings had originally been, the two massive metal rings had weathered into two bottomless springs.

Streams of clear, sweet water, containing highly concentrated high-dimensional Spiritual Qi, gushed out from those springs. The water poured down along the steep rock walls, turning into two spectacular silver waterfalls that converged at the bottom of the canyon into a rushing stream, flowing toward this grass-covered plain.

The water vapor from the falling waterfalls, illuminated by starlight in mid-air, refracted into a magnificent seven-colored rainbow, spanning across the two mountain peaks.

"The gate has turned into a mountain, the blood has turned into mud; this dead land is actually more imposing than the ancestral courts of the Immortal Realm."

Zhou Wannian looked at the towering green mountain, and a sincere smile appeared on his handsome face.

All things recover, Karma circulates.

There is no absolute death in this world, nor absolute despair. As long as that black whetstone pressing down on one's head is moved away, this world can bloom the most beautiful flowers in the mud.

He did not use any escape technique to fly over that mountain.

Instead, like an ordinary scholar sightseeing, he followed the clear stream, stepping on the pebbles smoothed by the water along the bank, and walked into the canyon that had evolved from the gate's crack.

Inside the canyon, the air was moist, and water vapor hit his face. The rock walls were covered with thick moss, like green velvet. Several illusory spiritual butterflies, condensed from pure Spiritual Qi, danced gracefully in the spray of the waterfall.

Zhou Wannian passed through the canyon and walked past the green mountain formed from the Primordial Dark Red Gate.

When his gaze crossed over the obstruction of the mountain peaks, looking toward the most core—and once the darkest—place of the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

Even for someone like Zhou Wannian, who had long been accustomed to the birth and destruction of All Heavens and Myriad Worlds and whose state of mind was as stagnant and leisurely as a pool of still water.

At this moment, he could not help but stop in his tracks, his eyes widening slightly, as a trace of undisguised astonishment and shock surfaced in those deep pupils.

Ahead.

That place was once the center of the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

There, there used to be a bottomless Withered Well, emitting a pungent stench and constantly spewing out gray-black Death Qi.

At the bottom of that Withered Well once hid the Thousand-Faced Swamp Monster, condensed from countless remnant souls and waste, and it was also the place where that black whetstone that destroyed the Universe operated.

That was the "sewage outlet" of the entire Universe, the abyss of the most desperate heat death.

But now.

That hair-raising Withered Well had vanished without a trace.

Taking its place was a tree.

A towering giant tree so massive that it could not be described by mortal language, one that could only be worshipped by gazing up at the starry sky.

This tree did not tower into the clouds to touch the boundaries of the Universe, but its canopy was shockingly large.

The branches, spreading out in all directions like a royal canopy, stretched for who knows how many tens of thousands of miles, completely shading the most core area of the Taiwu Ancestral Court beneath a vibrant expanse of green shade.

"This growth is a bit too overbearing."

Zhou Wannian looked up, watching the giant tree that blocked out the sky, unable to help but gasp, then shook his head and chuckled.

He recognized this tree.

This was not some Innate Spiritual Root born at the beginning of heaven and earth, nor was it some divine tree planted by the Creator himself.

This tree was simply a peach pit stained with his saliva, which he had spat into the mud of the Withered Well with a casual "pfft" back when he was strolling along the edge of the Withered Well in the Taiwu Ancestral Court, eating a peach he had swiped from the Lower Realm while complaining about the stench of the Death Qi!

Or perhaps it was a tea seed he had swiped from a tea garden in some cultivation world.

Whether it was a peach pit or a tea seed, when it fell to the bottom of the Withered Well, which was filled with absolute Death Qi and where even a Creation Immortal King would turn into yellow water if they fell in.

Not only was it not assimilated into nothingness.

Instead, amidst that endless Death Qi and foul-smelling mud, relying on the most unreasonable and overbearing instinct of life, it forced a crack open and pushed out a delicate green sprout.

And after experiencing the great collapse of the Universe's backend and the shattering of the black whetstone.

This tiny sprout that had once trembled in the cracks, struggling for survival.

In this brand-new Universe without shackles and without the countdown to heat death.

Completely ushered in its carnival.

"Rumble..."

In this silent central area, Zhou Wannian could even hear the sound of sap flowing inside the tree, like a rushing river.

He took a step and walked to the trunk of this giant tree.

The trunk was as thick as an endless wooden city wall. The bark was a rustic dark brown, its surface covered with deep ravines, like an aged face carved by time.

But in the gaps of this ancient bark, a vibrant emerald light faintly circulated.

Zhou Wannian reached out his long, fair hand and gently pressed it against the rough trunk.

Where he touched.

There was no coldness, only a strong, powerful, and continuous pulsation.

"Thump... thump..."

This was not the deathly resonance of the black whetstone; this was the rhythm of life breathing greedily.

Zhou Wannian closed his eyes, his Great Perfection perception extending down along the trunk.

He saw the tree's root system.

That Withered Well, once filled with despair, was now completely filled by the roots of this tree.

Those thick roots, like ancient coiled Dragons, were firmly rooted in the void at the very bottom of the Universe. They were like tireless, massive filters, sucking all the remaining fragmented Death Qi and the heat death waste that had not yet completely dissipated from the depths of this Universe into their root system.

Then, through the overbearing vitality conversion of the trunk.

It forcefully converted these remnants of death into the purest and gentlest high-dimensional life energy.

This tree was, in its own way, performing the final cleaning and purification for this Universe.

Zhou Wannian looked up, his gaze following the trunk upward to the massive canopy that stretched for thousands of miles.

On the canopy, the branches and leaves were lush to the extreme.

Those leaves, some were slender like willow leaves, others were round and plump like peach leaves, and even in the deepest parts of the branches, there were a few tea leaves emitting a faint fragrance.

"What kind of tree is this, anyway?" Zhou Wannian chuckled, "The saliva was spat carelessly, and what grew out is a hodgepodge."

Regardless of what kind of tree it was.

At this moment, every leaf on this tree was flowing with a faint halo of light.

A gentle breeze blew by.

The incredibly massive canopy made a "rustling" swaying sound.

This sound did not have a shred of killing intent; instead, it exuded an ethereal, tranquil charm. It was like the cool breeze fanned by a rocking cattail leaf fan under an old banyan tree on a summer afternoon, making one feel drowsy.

As the leaves swayed.

Waves of rich, cyan mist that were almost on the verge of turning into substance drifted down from the canopy.

This was the pure vitality that the tree fed back to this world after converting the Death Qi.

This cyan mist was like a drizzling rain, shrouding the entire central area of the Taiwu Ancestral Court. Under the nourishment of this mist, the green grass became more lush and verdant at a speed visible to the naked eye; the green mountain formed from the great gate also became more verdant and lush.

This towering tree, grown from a mortal peach pit.

Was like a huge protective umbrella opened at the very bottom of this Universe.

With its lush branches and leaves, and its continuous vitality, it provided the most solid and gentle shelter for this newborn land that had just experienced a great catastrophe and was as fragile as a newborn baby.

As long as this tree remained.

This Taiwu Ancestral Court would never again become that foul-smelling swamp of Death Qi. This Universe now had a green lung that continuously carried out the cycle of life and death and metabolism.

Zhou Wannian stood under the tree, taking a deep breath of the air mixed with the fragrance of tea and the sweetness of peach blossoms.

That fresh scent rushed straight into his lungs, completely washing away the last bit of fatigue he had contracted in the void.

"Considering everything, this deal was still a win for me."

Zhou Wannian patted the trunk, his tone full of that petty, worldly satisfaction of having gotten a good deal.

"I threw away a peach pit back then, and today it returns such a large shade for me to cool off in. Although the Heavens are full of schemes, this land knows how to repay kindness."

He released his hand from the trunk.

He lifted the hem of his cyan robe.

Right at the roots of this unimaginably massive giant tree, he found a relatively flat, protruding root covered in soft moss.

Without any hesitation, he leaned back comfortably.

His back pressed against the solid, warm trunk, and overhead were the lush branches and leaves that blocked the starry sky, letting only mottled light leak through.

In his ears was the "rustling" sound of leaves rubbing together, as well as the crisp sound of a distant waterfall.

Zhou Wannian rested his hands leisurely behind his head, his two long legs stretched out casually, his left leg crossed over his right, and his toes swayed gently with the rhythm of the breeze.

He narrowed his eyes slightly.

In those eyes, deep as an abyss, which had once caused the Truth Realm mainframe to crash and the Universe's cleanup program to collapse, there was now only a sense of laziness, having seen through everything and completely laid down his burdens.

These All Heavens and Myriad Worlds no longer needed him to carry them on his shoulders.

This dead end had also been smashed to pieces by his punch.

The remaining Sect grievances and dimensional evolutions were things for the living people to worry about and deal with themselves.

"I spent half my life forging iron, and millions of years carrying houses."

Zhou Wannian leaned against the tree root, feeling that refreshing vitality constantly smoothing out the wrinkles on his Divine Soul. He let out a long yawn.

"It's about time for me to have a comfortable nap."

A breeze blew by.

A few emerald leaves spiraled down from the canopy, one of which landed squarely on the tip of Zhou Wannian's nose.

He did not reach out to brush it away.

He only moved his lips slightly, seemingly muttering in his sleep.

"These leaves... if picked and steeped in water... would probably taste better... than the Old Shopkeeper's sour wine..."

The leaves rustled.

The cyan-robed scholar leaned under the tree, his breathing gradually becoming calm and long.

Beneath this giant tree, which was once the most desperate grave of the Universe but was now full of vitality.

He fell asleep.

Sleeping incredibly soundly, incredibly peacefully.