Gu Qingfeng hadn't understood before.
He hadn't understood why demon-god overlords like Chi You and Xing Tian, who possessed the power to shatter heaven and earth, could be suppressed and sealed away in the Guixu.
Now, he was beginning to understand a little.
Shattering heaven and earth didn't mean being omnipotent. Even if you destroyed this heaven and earth, it didn't mean you could leap out of it.
Moreover, heaven and earth probably weren't as simple as they seemed.
If even a single Desolate Ancient Era Ruins could be so mysterious and bizarre, let alone the heaven and earth that nurtured all things.
Gu Qingfeng stopped his futile struggles. Instead, he found a comfortable spot inside the Giant Cauldron and went to sleep. He didn't know how long he slept. When he woke, the Giant Cauldron was still the Giant Cauldron, the Seal was still the Seal, the desert was still the desert. Everything remained unchanged.
Over the years, though he had always been alone and grown accustomed to solitude, it didn't mean he could enjoy it.
Especially in this godforsaken, lifeless Desolate Ancient Era Ruins. Staying for ten or eight years, or even a hundred or eighty, wasn't a problem. He reckoned he could endure even longer.
If he truly couldn't endure it, he could try what he did last time—see if Nirvana Rebirth could get him out.
If even Nirvana Rebirth couldn't free him, he could simply seal himself away, resign himself to fate, and let things be. With good luck, perhaps the Ruins might manifest in the Great Wasteland. With bad luck, he'd just consider himself dead. It wasn't a big deal.
Gu Qingfeng considered whether he should take this opportunity to go into seclusion and thoroughly study his Physical Body.
Since he couldn't leave anyway, and idleness was idleness, he might as well go into seclusion and research.
He was just about to do so.
But after further thought, he gave up. He simply couldn't resign himself to being trapped here.
He figured he still had to find a way to leave.
He had already thought of all the methods he could and tried all the approaches available. Even destroying these Ruins had proven useless. At this point, Gu Qingfeng could only honestly try to comprehend the mysteries of these Desolate Ancient Era Ruins.
He understood clearly that if he wanted to leave, he must grasp the profound truths of these Ruins.
It was like treating an illness. To cure it, you must first know what the illness is to prescribe the right medicine. If you don't even know the illness and administer medicine randomly, not only will it fail to cure, it might worsen the condition.
His previous methods were like random medicine to Gu Qingfeng. He had hoped to rely on luck, but reality showed his luck wasn't that great. Fortunately, through those attempts, he had at least learned that Ancestor Lin Chi, the Giant Cauldron, and these Ruins were all connected.
Since that was the case.
Gu Qingfeng had no choice but to carefully contemplate their mysteries.
Whether he could comprehend them fully was unknown.
The Desolate Ancient Era Ruins had no origin, no laws, not even a structure. They seemed like the chaotic currents of the Endless Sea. The difference was that the Endless Sea's currents were ever-changing and utterly lawless, while these Ruins, though equally lawless, underwent no change at all.
What was even more bizarre was that these Ruins felt ethereal and indistinct, giving a sense of unreality, like a reflection in water. No matter how turbulent the water or how high the waves, the reflection remained unchanged.
Gu Qingfeng immersed himself in contemplation. He didn't know how much time passed, but gradually, he seemed to grasp something. It was like seeing a faint glimmer of light after being lost in darkness. But this light was too faint, so faint that if you didn't look carefully, you wouldn't see it at all. It was as if if you closed your eyes, you would never see that dim glimmer again.
He continued contemplating, searching for that faint glimmer in the darkness.
At this moment, Gu Qingfeng was completely immersed, forgetting time, forgetting space, forgetting himself, forgetting everything. In his mind, there was only that faint glimmer of light.
Fearing it might vanish, he frantically rushed toward it. Closer, ever closer. The light gradually became clearer.
Slowly, the dim light in his eyes was no longer dim; it grew bright.
As he drew nearer, the bright light even became somewhat dazzling.
Finally.
Gu Qingfeng arrived before that glimmer of light. The light was like a radiant sun, or like a door shimmering with light and brimming with hope. Without any hesitation, he charged straight in.
The light vanished. Gu Qingfeng arrived at a strange place.
Above the sky, a massive chaotic vortex slowly rotated. Below was an endless desert.
A mountain range resembling a dragon's skeleton lay sprawled across the desert.
Good heavens!
He had actually returned to the same Desolate Ancient Era Ruins.
What in the blazes was going on?
Was his Physical Body trapped here, and now his damned consciousness was trapped here too?
How could contemplating lead him back to the starting point?
He had clearly gained some insight just now. Why had it turned out like this?
Wait!
Something's wrong!
Gu Qingfeng suddenly realized that his Physical Body was currently in a state of deep meditation. In other words, what he was now was purely a wisp of consciousness. And these Ruins weren't the original Ruins either; they were more like a dream, a Spiritual Space.
Before he could feel any joy, a terrifying possibility occurred to him.
Could it be that his Physical Body was trapped in the real Ruins, while his consciousness was trapped in an illusory version of the Ruins?
If that were true, then that would be downright sinister!
Gu Qingfeng didn't hesitate, nor dared he hesitate. With a thought, he appeared on the mountain range.
In the real Ruins, that mountain range was littered with White Bones. But this mountain range had no White Bones at all.
Then, Gu Qingfeng entered the Giant Cauldron.
In reality, the Giant Cauldron was also filled with White Bones. The illusory Giant Cauldron had none.
Walking into the central hall of the Giant Cauldron, what struck him as bizarre was that Ancestor Lin Chi did not appear here. Not only that, but the Seal on the Artifact Eye had also vanished.
The Artifact Eye was empty, containing nothing. It was like a deep well, or more like an abyssal eye.
Just as he was hesitating whether to jump in and try, suddenly, a voice sounded.
"Young man, you...
Have finally come."
Hearing the voice, Gu Qingfeng was truly startled. Turning to look, he discovered a person had entered at some unknown time.
It was an Elder.
An Elder wearing tattered gray robes, with hair and beard white as snow, possessing an immortal-like demeanor.
Gu Qingfeng didn't recognize this Elder, nor did he know where the Elder had come from. The only thing he knew was that this Elder wasn't a person, but a wisp of spirit.
That's right!
It was a wisp of spiritual incarnation, commonly called a remnant consciousness.
If this place was truly the Spiritual Space of the Desolate Ancient Era Ruins, then the appearance of a remnant consciousness within it wasn't particularly strange.
What was strange was, why was this Elder's remnant consciousness in the Spiritual Space of the Ruins?
Was it trapped here?
Or did it originally belong here?