629: Chapter 619 Imperial Tutor (19)

The Heavenly Abyss grew quiet again.

The black tide was suppressed back into the depths.

The light of the blue lotus also gradually faded, like a lamp burning to its end, leaving only a few faint rays of afterglow that sank into the edge of the chasm.

The azure pagoda was gone.

The ancient path was gone.

Lu Xingzhou was gone.

There were no cheers between heaven and earth.

No boiling excitement after a victory.

Only the wind blew up from the deepest part of the Heavenly Abyss, swirling with the residual black mist, spinning between the cracked stone walls.

Qin Yun stood where he was, remaining motionless for a long time.

He did not tear open space again.

Nor did he continue to pursue the traces of the Immortal Path.

Because he knew very clearly that the path had closed.

With his current power, forcefully searching again would be nothing more than punching at empty space.

This time, he had been very close to that path.

So close that he was only one step away.

But the Immortal Path had not given him that step.

It had chosen Lu Xingzhou.

A person who did not wish for Immortal Ascension.

Qin Yun lowered his head, looking at his palms.

The nine books and Nine Treasures lay silent within his body.

The supreme Chaos Body circulated quietly.

The power of the Pseudo-Immortal peak still remained.

He had saved the Nine Continents.

He had suppressed the darkness.

He had mended the Seal.

He had experienced countless Clones in the Mortal World.

He had been a beggar, a carpenter, a physician, a teacher, and also a farmer and a porter.

He once thought that he had already walked through the Mortal World.

Yet the Immortal Path still rejected him.

It was not because he was not strong enough.

But because he had always stood on high, looking down at the Mortal World.

He was experiencing.

Observing.

And recording.

But in his heart, there had always been a pair of eyes from a higher place.

Those eyes saw the suffering of Mortals, the death of Cultivators, and the collapse of the Nine Continents' mountains and rivers.

Yet he would still calculate in his heart.

Whether it was worth it.

Whether he should act.

How much Origin it would consume.

Whether it would affect the final resolution.

Qin Yun closed his eyes.

Lu Xingzhou's final voice fell into his heart once more.

"The world can exist without Immortals."

"It can also exist without mountains."

"But it cannot exist without people."

People.

The place in Qin Yun's chest that had been silent for too long seemed to be gently tapped.

He had explained the character for "Immortal" countless times.

"Person" on the left, "mountain" on the right.

The Immortal is on the mountain.

People stand at the foot of the mountain, looking up at the person on the mountain, and thus believe that is an Immortal.

Xuan Zhao had once said, if you remove the people, the mountain is just a mountain.

Lu Xingzhou had also said, people are in the front, and the mountain is in the back.

He had heard it.

But he had not truly taken it to heart.

Because he had always regarded the mountain as a higher place.

And the foot of the mountain as the Mortal World.

He thought that by standing high, one could see far.

He thought that by seeing far, he could decide for those at the foot of the mountain what should be saved and what should be abandoned.

But this, in itself, was a barrier.

If there truly were an Immortal of the Mortal World, there should no longer be a mountain top or mountain foot.

If one still felt that one was on the mountain, looking down with pity at the living beings below, then one was not yet an Immortal of the Mortal World.

An Immortal of the Mortal World is not someone on high occasionally reaching out a hand.

It is that he is already among the living beings.

The sound of the wind grew heavier.

On the edge of the Heavenly Abyss, on the cracked stone wall, there were still a few drops of undried blood.

Qin Yun opened his eyes.

The Heart Heavy Pupils opened silently.

This time, he did not look at the textures of the Dao.

He did not look at the spatial faults.

Nor did he go to pursue the Karma of fate.

His vision unfolded toward the Nine Continents.

Very far.

Very scattered.

Very chaotic.

He saw a small city that had been drenched by black rain.

Half of the city wall had collapsed, and the houses were burned charred black.

A woman knelt in the ruins, feeding the last mouthful of porridge to the child in her arms.

The child could no longer cry, only clutching her clothes, fingers thin and pale.

He saw an old man sitting in front of a broken threshold.

The house was gone.

His family was also gone.

The old man still guarded that place, holding an old wooden tablet in his arms, as if waiting for someone to come home.

He saw a young Cultivator holding a broken sword, standing on the dilapidated city wall.

There were no more enemies outside the city.

But he refused to retreat.

Because behind the city gate, there were still a few Mortals who had not managed to evacuate.

He saw in a ruined temple, a village child looking up and asking the teacher.

"Will the Immortals come down the mountain?"

He saw Mortals looking up at the sky.

That person was not seeking eternal life.

Not seeking an Immortal connection.

Just muttering, hoping it wouldn't rain black rain again tomorrow.

Qin Yun heard many sounds.

Crying.

Coughing.

Arguing.

The crying of infants.

The crackling of firewood.

The sound of a blacksmith hammering iron.

The sound of students reading.

And the sound of a woman crying, begging her child to wake up.

These sounds were very mixed.

Very small.

Not solemn at all.

But together, they were the Mortal World.

Standing at the edge of the Heavenly Abyss, Qin Yun suddenly felt that over these years, he had heard too much of the roaring of the Dao.

Too much shaking of the Heavenly Continent.

Too many aftershocks of Imperial battles.

Yet he had almost forgotten that the true human world was actually like this.

Not grand.

Not orderly.

Even noisy.

But alive.

He remembered the candy Ling'er had handed him.

He remembered Chen Yang laughing and calling him Brother Yun.

He remembered Gu Zhan's back blocking the front.

He remembered that sword strike from You Chen.

He remembered Xuan Zhao being flustered and scalded while roasting sweet potatoes.

He remembered Lu Xingzhou standing in a ruined temple, drenched in rain, eyes red, saying that Immortals should come down the mountain.

These people were not testaments on his path to Immortal Ascension.

Nor were they steps for his enlightenment.

They were people.

They were people who had lived, suffered, laughed, and died, one by one.

Qin Yun was silent for a long time.

He finally understood that he had once compressed too much sorrow into the "big picture."

Sealed too much reluctance into the Dao.

Treated too many people as just a part of the grand term "living beings of the Nine Continents."

But if one truly stood beside them.

Seeing a child with a fever.

Seeing an old man unable to wait for someone to return.

Seeing the young Cultivator on the city wall about to fall.

Could he ignore it?

No.

If he could not ignore it, then he should not pretend to be heartless.

If there was still pain, it meant the person was still there.

If the person was still there, the Immortal Path was not broken.

Qin Yun raised his hand.

The nine books and Nine Treasures appeared one by one.

void book, book of life, death book, Time Book, Body Scripture, Treasure Book, Fate Book, Dao Book, Luck Book.

The Nine Treasures floated, each radiating different dao rhymes.

They once represented the Origin of the Nine Continents.

Represented the supreme rules.

At this moment, they retracted their light one by one before Qin Yun's palm.

He did not let them circle his body again.

Did not let them display his Dao fruit.

He just took them back into his body.

Like putting away a suit of magnificent armor.

The wind at the edge of the Heavenly Abyss was still very cold.

Qin Yun turned around.

This time, he did not stand in front of the chasm overlooking the Nine Continents.

Nor did he stand on the mountain thinking about when to come down.

Because "mountain top" and "mountain foot" no longer had any meaning.

He turned and took a step.

There was no Immortal light paving the way.

No worship of ten thousand Daos.

He was just walking toward the human world.

Through the Heart Heavy Pupils, in the distance, in a ruined city, someone lit a lamp again.

The lamp flame was small, flickering in the wind, but it did not go out.

In the ruins, a man moved away rubble, found his still-living relative, and hugged them while crying like a child.

In the rain, a small child fell into the mud, crying loudly.

Someone ran out from under the eaves and carried him inside.

Qin Yun stood in the Heavenly Abyss, watching all of this.

He finally understood that the so-called Mortal World was not ten thousand feet of clamor.

It was that these people were still alive.

From then on, in his heart, there was no longer a mountain top, nor a mountain foot.

He was just a person.

A person who had finally walked back into the human world.