Gu Qingfeng immediately took out that painting from his storage bag.
It was a very ordinary ink wash painting, so ordinary it couldn't be more ordinary, even crude one might say.
On the painting, there was only a single mountain.
And by the looks of it, it was a very desolate mountain.
On the mountain, flowers and grass had withered, trees had dried up, and even the rocks on the mountain seemed to have decayed.
Apart from this, there was nothing else.
Forget about containing any profound truths or mysteries; Gu Qingfeng couldn't even discern any meaning from this painting.
"You said this painting holds everything I want to know, but maybe my comprehension is lacking—I can't grasp anything from it at all!"
Gu Qingfeng was somewhat irritated. After all this trouble—the fear, the anxiety, nearly getting lost in extinction—finally finding the Yanyang Heart, he had thought he'd gain something. Even if there was no harvest, it should at least have been a good start for his pursuit of Karma. But he never expected that going round and round would lead him to this painting that looked like it was nothing at all.
"This is a mountain, named Wu Dao Mountain. Find it... Find it..."
"Wu Dao Mountain?"
Gu Qingfeng carefully searched his memories, combing through five hundred years' worth, but there was no recollection of any Wu Dao Mountain in his mind, not even the name. Suddenly, another thought struck him. Wu Dao Mountain? Wu Dao? Could this Wu Dao refer to Venerable Wu Dao of the Mysterious Era? Was this mountain also from the Mysterious Era?
"Wu Dao Mountain is indeed a mountain from the Mysterious Era..."
"I'm telling you, Yun Nishang, if this damn mountain is from the Mysterious Era, you're telling me to find it?"
Gu Qingfeng wondered if he had misheard.
The Mysterious Era was the most unknown era throughout history, hailed as the greatest mystery between Heaven and Earth. Spanning the Desolate Ancient, Ancient, and Archaic periods, over countless eons, no one had ever known what truly happened in the Mysterious Era. That era left behind no ruins, no cave dwellings from that time had ever emerged, and it was even unknown whether any living beings existed in that era.
Regarding the entire Mysterious Era, apart from a few legends about Venerable Wu Dao, nothing else was known, let alone some dilapidated mountain from the Mysterious Era. If he could actually find that, it would be downright bizarre!
"The great calamity of ages unfolds Heaven and Earth, three cycles of reincarnation reveal the Eternal, past life and present life meet through Karma, whose fate is whose depends on Heaven."
Gu Qingfeng murmured these lines, pondering and contemplating.
The meaning of 'the great calamity of ages unfolds Heaven and Earth' he understood—it simply meant that each era had one great calamity, and each great calamity inevitably caused Heaven and Earth to re-derive and rebirth.
As for 'three cycles of reincarnation reveal the Eternal'—did it mean that after Heaven and Earth underwent three cycles of reincarnation, what existed before the Eternal would reappear? And this 'Eternal,' did it refer to the Mysterious Era?
Gu Qingfeng thought about it. After the Mysterious Era ended came the Desolate Ancient, after the Desolate Ancient came the Ancient, and after the Ancient came the Archaic—exactly three calamities, three cycles.
"Are you saying the Mysterious Era will reappear in the Present Era?"
"Yes... yes!"
"When?"
"Don't know..."
"And what does 'past life and present life meet through Karma' mean? What's the meaning of 'whose fate is whose depends on Heaven'?"
"Don't know..."
Gu Qingfeng wasn't sure whether Yun Nishang truly didn't know or didn't want to say. He murmured the meaning of these four lines again. The more he murmured, the more something felt off, the more familiar it seemed, as if he had seen or heard it somewhere before.
Suddenly, Gu Qingfeng recalled a legend.
A terrifying legend.
One that even made him feel a shudder in his heart. He asked, "You say the Mysterious Era will reappear in the Present Era—in what form will it reappear?"
This time, Yun Nishang did not speak.
And precisely Yun Nishang's silence made Gu Qingfeng even more suspicious of that legend. It was a legend about Karma, also a legend about the Mysterious Era, and moreover, a legend about the Karma Black Hole.
According to legend, during the Mysterious Era, after Venerable Wu Dao achieved Godhood, he learned the secrets of Heaven and Earth and announced them to the world. The various Gods merged to obliterate all Human, and Venerable Wu Dao used his heaven-reaching divine powers to bury and seal away the Mysterious Era... causing it to vanish without a trace.
It was said that starting from the Mysterious Era, Karma had already deviated from its normal path Dao, becoming chaotic. In order to correct Karma, the Gods placed a curse upon the Karma of everyone from the Mysterious Era.
The three cycles of reincarnation were the time when Heaven and Earth were at their weakest. At that time, the vanished Mysterious Era would reappear in Heaven and Earth. The reappearance of the Mysterious Era also equaled the reappearance of the black hole. When the black hole reappeared, Karma would inevitably become chaotic. The so-called 'past life and present life meet through Karma' referred to one's past life and present life meeting face to face...
The so-called 'whose fate is whose depends on Heaven' meant that once past life and present life met, only one could survive.
This was a curse.
A curse of Karma!
Just think, what kind of scene would it be for a person's past life and present life to meet?
Even more terrifying was that past life and present life shared Karma, and only one could live.
Would the past life kill the present life?
Would the present life kill the past life?
This was even more cruel than killing oneself.
Gu Qingfeng pondered. Yun Nishang mentioned the Mysterious Era. Could it be that his and her Karma originated from the Mysterious Era? In other words, were his and Yun Nishang's past lives both people from the Mysterious Era?
But even if so, why did she need to perform the Blood-Sacrifice Soul Burial?
Was she afraid that when the Mysterious Era reappeared in the future, she would encounter her past life?
Afraid of mutual slaughter?
That didn't make sense either!
Leaving aside whether the legend of the Mysterious Era's reappearance was true or false.
Even if it were true, so what?
She dared to use a cruel forbidden curse like Blood-Sacrifice Soul Burial—was she still afraid of mutual slaughter with her past life?
She was escaping!
And what she was escaping from must be Karma!
But damn it, Gu Qingfeng really couldn't figure out what Karma she was trying to escape.
No matter how he asked, Yun Nishang knew nothing, three questions yielded no answers, and further questioning still yielded nothing.
"Don't ask me...
I don't know, I know nothing at all, and I don't want to know anything either. I am indeed escaping, and what I'm escaping is indeed Karma...
I...
I fear Karma, but I also don't know what Karma I fear..."
"I just want to hide away...
I don't want to do anything..."
"You know?
I regret it, regret divining Karma back then, regret setting up that Karma scheme, regret finding you, this so-called Karma...
I regret it...
Really regret it..."
"But all this was destined long ago...
Heh...
Everything was destined..."
"Our Karma was cursed from the very beginning..."
"I sought Karma for countless eons...
Life and death, death and life, several cycles of Reincarnation, several reincarnations... I'm tired, truly so tired, so weary..."
Yun Nishang's voice grew weaker and weaker: "If possible, I hope you can abandon Karma...
Don't pursue it...
Don't..."
Faced with Yun Nishang's growing weakness, Gu Qingfeng felt a deep sense of powerlessness. Although he was full of doubts, he did not continue questioning, because he sensed that this wisp of Yun Nishang's residual consciousness was on the verge of death, could dissipate at any moment. He sighed and said, "Let's leave the matter of Karma at that. I don't want to say more. After all, we were acquainted once. You...
Do you have any unfulfilled wishes?"
"If...
If I have a wish, would you help me fulfill it?"
"Of course. Even if not for you, then for the Hongxiu of the past."
"Good. Then kill me!"
Gu Qingfeng was stunned, astonished: "Kill you? What do you mean?"
"Kill the person I used Blood-Sacrifice Soul Burial to reincarnate into."
Hearing this, Gu Qingfeng was even more unable to comprehend. He asked, "You want me to kill Ouyang Ye? Why?"
"If you don't kill her, you will regret it...
You definitely will..."