Eight Gates Facing the Heavenly Palace

Eight Gates Facing the Heavenly Palace

"Could this sword be the reason Tianmen Town was destroyed?"

Qiu Shuijing's heart trembled. It was as though time had frozen within Su Yun's eyes, branding the scene from before Tianmen Town's destruction into them.

Yet the truth was that Su Yun had merely been a child living in Tianmen Town then. At the very instant the longsword flew here, he had happened to look up at it, and that scene had been branded into his eyes.

The price was that his eyes could not withstand the Immortal Sword's sharpness and power. He became blind!

The intense light compressed his pupils to their utmost limit. The Immortal Sword's imprint lodged within them, blocking his sight completely!

This was likely the unforeseen change Mister Wild Fox had mentioned.

"Mister Shuijing?" Su Yun had not heard Qiu Shuijing's voice for a long while and asked in confusion.

Qiu Shuijing steadied himself. "I'm here."

His voice trembled slightly. He still could not suppress the shock in his heart.

The legendary Grotto-Heaven World truly existed!

Did that not mean immortal beings who lived forever truly existed as well?

His gaze continued to sweep over the scene, and he suddenly discovered something else. The Tianmen Town beneath the Immortal Sword differed from the Tianmen Town of today.

There had been eight gate towers in Tianmen Town. Every one was exquisitely crafted, carved and painted with all manner of divine beasts and strange beasts, as though Spiritual Abilities clung to the towers.

"Chao Tian Que!"

Qiu Shuijing's eyelid twitched. Comparing the positions of the Eight-Sided Facing Heaven Palace and the Heavenly Gate Archway, his heartbeat abruptly quickened.

"These Eight-Sided Facing Heaven Palace formed a peculiar formation with the Heaven Gate. The experts who settled in Tianmen Town had already achieved something in their research into the Tianmen Ghost Market. That Grotto-Heaven Longevity World was opened by them, by them..."

His expression shifted between light and shadow. Suddenly, he forced himself to calm down and confirmed his speculation. "They opened it themselves!"

At last, he had sorted out the connections between everything.

The Great Emperor of Yuanshuo Kingdom had ordered experts from across the realm to come here and study the Tianmen Ghost Market, seeking to uncover its secrets and fulfill his own desire for eternal life.

These renowned masters had come to Tianmen Town and lived alongside its residents. Su Yun's family had been among those residents.

Those experts had transformed Tianmen Town, tearing down its original houses and rebuilding it in imitation of the Tianmen Ghost Market.

Their research had also made a breakthrough, one centered upon the Eight-Sided Facing Heaven Palace.

They imbued the Chao Tian Que with their respective Spiritual Abilities. One night, they finally opened a gateway to another world, linking the two worlds together!

What happened afterward, however, went beyond their expectations.

They had attempted to enter that world, only to meet resistance from it. An Immortal Sword flew out from that world, killing them and everyone in Tianmen Town at the same time.

Then the water pillar connecting the two worlds descended from the heavens, causing a tsunami in the North Sea and inflicting devastating casualties upon Tianshiyuan. The hundred-mile radius around Tianmen Town became a No-Man's Land where Demons ran rampant.

The powerful people of Tianmen Town had caused this catastrophe!

"But why didn't Su Yun die?"

Qiu Shuijing was utterly baffled. All the experts of Tianmen Town had died. Humans and animals alike had vanished without exception, leaving behind only the experts' spirits.

Why had Su Yun, an utterly ordinary child, not died in that catastrophe?

"Perhaps the powerful people of Tianmen Town felt they had implicated this innocent child, so they protected him amid the disaster."

Qiu Shuijing thought, "After the catastrophe in Tianmen Town, they must have taken especially good care of this child because of that."

This might have been one explanation, but it did not satisfy Qiu Shuijing.

There was another point he could not understand. If Tianmen Town's experts had been slain by the Immortal Sword, then their spirits should have been even easier to destroy.

Spirits depended on physical bodies and were even more fragile.

What was strange was that the experts' spirits had remained, while their bodies had vanished into thin air!

It was impossible for everyone's physical bodies to have been destroyed while their spirits remained intact.

"This means my speculation is not entirely correct. Other unforeseen changes must have occurred back then."

Qiu Shuijing's gaze flickered. The mysteries of Tianmen Town had not all been unraveled.

The whereabouts of the Eight-Sided Facing Heaven Palace were another mystery.

He looked around. Tianmen Town's buildings were all still there. Even the Heaven Gate had not been destroyed in the catastrophe. Only the eight Chao Tian Que that had opened the gateway to another world had disappeared.

Who had taken the Eight-Sided Facing Heaven Palace?

"Either the Great Emperor of Eastern Capital took them, or someone snatched food from a tiger's jaws. Interesting..."

Qiu Shuijing smiled faintly and dispersed his power. The Immortal Sword's projection returned to Su Yun's eyes once more.

"You are not truly blind. A Strange Object is blocking your pupils."

Qiu Shuijing smiled. "As long as you dissolve the Strange Object lodged in your pupils, or make it leave them, your eyes can recover."

Su Yun grew excited, then immediately became dejected.

How was he supposed to dissolve the Strange Object in his eyes?

For the past few years, he had listened to the townspeople and set up a stall at the market, hoping someone would take a liking to his "treasures" and cure his eyes. But clearly, his "treasures" were not true treasures. No one had ever been interested.

"I can't afford that much money..." Su Yun muttered.

Qiu Shuijing laughed. "I never said I would be the one treating your eyes."

Su Yun lowered his head and pressed his lips together.

He was a somewhat stubborn youth, unwilling to ask others for help.

Qiu Shuijing smiled. "I am only teaching you a way to treat your eyes. Healing them is your own business and has nothing to do with me. If you treat your own eyes, do you need to pay yourself?"

Su Yun looked up in surprise.

"However, I am not an official teacher at a County School. I am a private tutor, the sort who gives supplementary lessons to the sons of noble families."

Qiu Shuijing smiled. "So I still have to charge tuition. Give me one Five Zhu Coin, and I will teach you."

The Five Zhu Coin was the smallest denomination in Yuanshuo Kingdom. Each coin weighed five zhu, which was why it was called a Five Zhu Coin.

Su Yun's face flushed red. He fumbled around in his sleeve for a long while but never took anything out.

Qiu Shuijing asked in confusion, "Don't tell me you don't even have one Five Zhu Coin?"

Su Yun nodded shamefully, then hurriedly said, "Mister, my treasures..."

Qiu Shuijing did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Su Yun's "treasures" were actually burial objects belonging to poor folk, worthless beyond measure.

Qiu Shuijing was an eccentric man with principles of his own. He had always believed knowledge had a price. He could teach Su Yun how to treat his "eye ailment," but Su Yun had to give something in return. He could not simply give it away for free.

—Of course, what he was teaching Su Yun was worth far more than one Five Zhu Coin. The reason he insisted on taking one coin was precisely because of his principles.

It was also because of this temperament that he had been unable to get along in Eastern Capital and had no choice but to resign from office and leave that place of contention.

"Please wait a moment, Mister."

Su Yun hurriedly said, "I'll go borrow a coin from Mister Wild Fox."

Qiu Shuijing threw back his head and laughed. His laughter scattered the gloom over Tianmen Town, allowing sunlight to fall down, landing squarely upon Su Yun's courtyard. "I'll go with you. Once I have taught you, I will return to Northern Frontier."

Su Yun led the way. Qiu Shuijing saw the Yellow Bell emerge again, constantly rotating to mark the time. His heart stirred, and he asked, "Su Yun, how did you survive?"

Su Yun was slightly stunned.

Qiu Shuijing said, "What I mean is, what happened after you went blind?"

The youth continued onward and left Tianmen Town. "I don't know what happened either. I only remember falling asleep. When I woke up, I found myself shut inside a cramped little room, so I pounded on it desperately. Uncle Cen opened the door and let me out."

"Uncle Cen?"

"He's Uncle Cen, the one who lives beneath the willow tree."

Su Yun raised a hand to point. Qiu Shuijing saw that crooked-necked willow again. There was no one beneath it, nor were there any houses—only a desolate grave.

"Uncle Cen lived next door to my family. He was a strange man who did not like speaking with people. He told me my home had been destroyed and had me move into town. So I went to live in town, and all the uncles there took great care of me..."

Hearing this, Qiu Shuijing looked around. "Where was your original home?"

Su Yun raised a hand and pointed. Looking in that direction, Qiu Shuijing saw only a tiny grave and a small coffin that had already rotted away.

Qiu Shuijing fell silent.

The youth had been six or seven years old then. While unconscious, he had been mistaken for dead, placed in a coffin, and buried.

After waking up, he must have struck the coffin at night, alarming the spirit within the grave beneath the crooked-necked willow not far away—that "Uncle Cen."

Uncle Cen had rescued him from the grave and guided him to live in town.

Su Yun was already blind and had no idea that the one speaking to him was not human. Nor did he know that he was the only living person in all of Tianmen Town!

Zhai Zhu: Please give recommendations. Don't say "next time" or "definitely next time"—I want them this time.