Chapter 341

Chapter 341: Lu Bu Qi

With Si Yao leading the way, they reached Xuandu Pass in First Nebula in less than half a month. Third Zen Heaven lay at the heart of Xuandu Pass, like a colossal presence seated in the center of the void.

Xuandu Pass sat along the lower edge of First Nebula, bordering Second Star Cloud.

Si Yao brought Wang Jie to a planet with a clear view of Third Zen Heaven, then departed. Before leaving, he told Wang Jie that nearly everyone who hoped to enter Third Zen Heaven came here first—to rest, to gather themselves, to steady their hearts.

This place wasn’t prosperous.

It was the opposite—war-ravaged, full of mortal kingdoms locked in constant conflict.

Coming to Third Zen Heaven was, for Wang Jie, a choice made with caution.

In truth, the best place for cultivation would have been Jia Yi Sect, because Jia Yi Sect possessed Myriad Stars Cliff—a place that could help him increase the power of Myriad-Stars Finger.

But he didn’t dare go.

Who knew what Jia Yi Sect’s attitude toward him would be? If they decided to “watch” him for ten years the way others wanted to, then ten years from now he’d have no chance at all in the Wandering-Star Tournament.

So he leaned toward Third Zen Heaven.

He carried a zen token. Entering wasn’t difficult.

Third Zen Heaven was also a major force in its own right. If the Hearted Ones wanted to find him, it wouldn’t be easy.

And the greatest advantage of the zen token was that it prevented investigation.

Unless you were from the Dead Realm, Third Zen Heaven wouldn’t question your origins. They wouldn’t check your past. They didn’t care.

Wang Jie had made sure of that before coming.

He didn’t know why Third Zen Heaven enforced such a rule, but for him it was perfect.

As long as he didn’t use qi refining, no one would see any link between him and the Dead Realm.

And the Nine-Form Diagram would secure his disguise further.

Maybe Third Zen Heaven’s cultivation environment could help him too. However you looked at it, Third Zen Heaven surpassed Black-White Heaven.

Third Zen Heaven.

There was weight in the word zen.

What was zen?

No one knew. If you knew, you’d already be Entering Zen—so why come here for trials?

The mortal wars in the surrounding region weren’t random.

They were guided—nudged into being—by cultivators who hoped to join Third Zen Heaven. Their goal was to watch mortals slaughter each other and glean enlightenment from life and death, convinced it would increase their chances of being accepted.

Life and death were always the fastest road to insight.

As for the suffering of mortal kingdoms… they didn’t care.

One planet.

Two worlds.

High above the clouds, cultivators stood on mountain ridges and looked down, faces lit with anticipation.

“It’s about to start. Both nations threw in over a million soldiers. This one will be brutal.”

“You sure? Don’t let them make peace again.”

“They won’t. Brother Zhang and the others disguised themselves as both sides and assassinated key figures in each kingdom. Now it’s a blood feud—one that can never be untied.”

The speaker laughed, delighted. “Good. Now we can watch to our hearts’ content.”

“The war is about to begin,” someone called. “Everyone, please take your seats.”

Wang Jie followed the guide into a viewing area divided by stone partitions. Each observer sat isolated behind walls, meant to prevent disturbance while they pursued their own enlightenment.

They watched mortal slaughter to seek a personal “zen path,” convinced it would raise their odds of entering Third Zen Heaven.

In the eyes of cultivators, the lives of millions were a game. Before the battle even began, someone was already asking Wang Jie whether he wanted to watch the next one on a neighboring planet—another million deaths, with an extra twist of love and hatred woven into the story.

It made Wang Jie think of Zhi Yu.

Zhi Yu had manufactured stories to taste life, to understand it.

But Zhi Yu only played at experience.

These people created wars outright. For them, tens of thousands dead was just the beginning.

“Does watching this really increase the chance of joining Third Zen Heaven?” Wang Jie asked.

Outside the partition, someone answered respectfully, “Of course. Many who entered Third Zen Heaven have said so.

“And Third Zen Heaven permits this method.”

Wang Jie looked down.

The war began quickly.

The roar of a million men ripping into each other tore through the sky. He watched mortals with bloodshot eyes—tearing, stabbing, screaming. Even behind the walls, he could hear the onlookers nearby breathing hard: excitement, hunger, barely restrained delight.

Were they truly doing this for Third Zen Heaven?

Maybe at first.

But after failing again and again, something in them had twisted.

Wang Jie felt sick.

He left.

He went to another planet.

It was the same.

It felt as if the entire ring of territory around Third Zen Heaven was stained with ugliness.

He stared toward Third Zen Heaven in the distance.

Was this what they wanted?

What was zen?

Was taking life zen?

Was bullying the weak zen?

Was treating life and death as entertainment zen?

An instinctive resistance rose in him.

He knew the universe was full of this.

Every major sect and force did the same thing.

Jia Yi Sect’s trial required building a bridge using blue star—a trial that would kill everyone on that world, and Jia Yi Sect wouldn’t feel a ripple of emotion.

Jia Yi Sect, Third Zen Heaven, Cheng Yi Dao, Black-White Heaven… which of them were different?

This was the universe.

Life was only a passage.

If you were lucky, you crossed it yourself.

If you weren’t, someone else crossed it using you.

That was life.

So what about him?

What about his master?

Wang Jie walked into a small tavern on the desert frontier. Inside, a young attendant sat swatting flies with bored impatience. Most of the tables were broken, and the stools wobbled like they might collapse at a touch.

Outside, fierce wind and sand battered the windows, making the frames rattle.

“What’ll you have, guest?” the attendant asked. “We only have our own sand wine.”

“Whatever,” Wang Jie said.

“Right away. One pot of sand wine.”

The liquor poured out murky. Wang Jie took a sip.

It tasted awful—gritty with sand.

He lifted his gaze. In the far distance stood a mountain. On its peak, countless figures watched with bright, eager faces.

They looked down from above, and from where Wang Jie sat below, he could look up at them.

He suddenly understood something simple: there was no absolute high or low between heaven and earth.

Outside, people ran through the streets shouting warnings.

“Little waiter,” Wang Jie called.

“Yes, guest?”

“The fighting’s about to start. You’re not running?”

The attendant gave a tired smile. “What’s the point? Where would we even run?

“If General Lu can’t hold the city, it doesn’t matter how far you flee. The people in the imperial capital don’t care whether we live or die. If the city holds, staying here is the safest thing.

“General Lu’s been good to us.”

“Can he hold it?”

The attendant’s eyes dimmed. “The desert raiders are vicious. They say when they run out of supplies, they eat white meat. They don’t fear death. Holding them back… probably impossible.”

Wang Jie’s brows drew together. “White meat?”

The attendant chuckled softly. “Guest, you’re clearly not from around here. Take my advice—finish your wine and leave. And never come back.”

Just then, several men shoved into the tavern. “A pot of sand wine!”

Someone stared. “Huh? Why’s the little general here? Did the enemy retreat?”

“How could they? They ran out of white meat. They’re counting on this war to loot food. There’s no way they’re leaving.”

“Then why are you—”

The little general grinned. “Drink enough and you don’t feel the pain.”

“Right away, Little General. Give me a moment.”

The attendant hurried off, leaving Wang Jie alone with the group at the neighboring table.

The little general looked Wang Jie over. “Brother, where are you from?”

Wang Jie studied him. The man was handsome and pale—nothing like the weathered look of a desert officer. He seemed more like a scholar than a soldier. “Elsewhere.”

“Then coming here isn’t good luck,” the little general said. “Leave while you can.”

“If you don’t think you can hold the city,” Wang Jie asked, “why not abandon it and run?”

The little general’s eyes sharpened, his voice dropping into something stubborn. “My name is Lu Bu Qi. My old dad said it: don’t abandon your country, don’t abandon your home. This city is my home. How could I leave it?”

Wang Jie looked away and took another sip of sand wine.

Not long after, war drums sounded.

The killing began.

Wang Jie stayed in the tavern, staring toward the distant city gate as it shook under repeated impacts. The defenders numbered only twenty thousand. The attackers were over a hundred thousand. Holding was nearly impossible.

Most of the city’s civilians had already fled.

He watched the little waiter grab a kitchen cleaver and sprint outside. The tavern owner was nowhere to be seen—probably long gone.

At last, the gate gave.

With a crash, it split open.

A general in armor on horseback charged into the breach and planted himself there, facing the sea of enemies. He roared, “Kill—!”

Behind him, Lu Bu Qi’s eyes turned red. He shouted, “Kill!”

“Kill!”

“Kill!”

The roar of countless voices surged into the sky and reached the mountain peaks above.

It stirred nothing in the watchers.

They only watched, laughed, and indulged.

Wang Jie raised his cup and watched as well.

He watched the general cut down enemy after enemy, watched bodies pile up, watched the attackers lift a massive log and swing it like a battering ram. The general spat blood as he staggered back, but he still swung his blade in a single, furious arc—One Blade—splitting the log in two, his bellow shaking the enemy line.

Wang Jie lifted a hand.

The Nine-Form Diagram appeared.

He “painted” Lu Bu Qi.

“Father!” Lu Bu Qi screamed.

He shoved the dying warhorse off his father’s crushed body. “Father, we can’t hold it anymore!”

The general’s laugh came out ragged and blood-soaked. Red veins webbed his eyes as he stared at the enemy beyond the gate. “How many did you kill?”

“Sixty-two.”

The general’s lips twisted. “We don’t abandon it. Are you afraid?”

“I’m not afraid,” Lu Bu Qi said hoarsely. “I already drank.”

The general laughed, wild and fierce. “Then follow your father and kill past a hundred.”

“Yes!”

The enemy surged again—faces twisted with hunger and excitement. The city was food.

Sixty-three. Seventy-two. Eighty-nine. Ninety-five.

The general’s blade cracked.

He leaned against the city gate, blood dripping down his armor. The killing intent rolling off him was so thick the enemy line actually slowed.

Then a horn sounded from the rear.

A new wave charged.

A hundred.

Lu Bu Qi clutched his father’s arm with shaking hands. A hundred.

A storm of blades fell.

The gate creaked and groaned like it might collapse.

And then—

The general vanished.

Lu Bu Qi lifted his head.

A smile curved on his lips, calm and fearless. “One man guards the pass—ten thousand cannot break through!”

He raised the blade and struck.

Bodies piled higher and higher. Each One Blade took a life. The dead stacked so thick at the gate that no one could step forward without climbing over corpses.

Cold arcs of steel harvested lives until it was no longer a matter of a hundred.

On the mountain peak, someone suddenly shouted, “Something’s wrong! That man is a cultivator! A mortal can’t have that kind of strength!”

“Go deal with him! A cultivator dares interfere in mortal war? He broke the rules—he must pay the price!”

“Now!”

The mountain collapsed.

Stone and earth roared down, swallowing everything.

The young man stood beneath the city gate and looked toward the direction the watchers had fled, then exhaled slowly.

Undying Body.

The last mission was complete.

Of course, he was Wang Jie.

But from this moment on, he was Lu Bu Qi—a mortal general’s son from a warring kingdom. By chance, he had obtained a zen token, and now he would enter Third Zen Heaven to cultivate.

No matter what he thought of Third Zen Heaven, cultivation was his.

Next, he would go.

But before that—

Undying Body.

Wang Jie found a hidden place and entered the field.

Inside, all eight materials were complete.

This was the longest-growing set of materials he’d ever finished—longer even than the Heaven-Reversal Path materials.

He could only hope it had been worth it.

Wang Jie raised his hand and touched it.

A hazy light flared and shot into his forehead, then vanished.

He stood there for a long time before finally opening his eyes.

So this was Undying Body?

Undying Body: take celestial circuit of stars as bones.

A single sentence—and his blood surged.