How could he determine that this was not the past?
Because Ning Zheng's Shadow Calamity Esteemed Immortal was in the past.
As an almost omnipotent and omnipresent Celestial Phenomenon, she could make that Celestial Phenomenon Esteemed Immortal descend in an instant.
But here, the Great Dao of Laws was impoverished, and the Heavenly Dao did not manifest. Even a Celestial Phenomenon Esteemed Immortal could not come here. Clearly, this was not the prison of the past.
But neither was it the future.
Because Ning Zheng's true body was in the future, and only one timeline remained there, as thin as an unofficial history. It would be easy to investigate and make everything clear.
This could only be the mysterious present spoken of in legends—the place with the least information and the greatest unknowability.
If time was a long, winding line,
the first half of the past was long, the second half of the future was also long, while the present occupied only a single instant.
And if Ning Zheng's guess was correct, this present lay within the Time City Gate at the central node.
Xian himself was extremely mysterious.
Whether in the past or the future, Xian was dead. So, as the Undying and Indestructible Celestial Phenomenon Esteemed Immortal and the fourth Supreme Esteemed Immortal, where was he still alive?
The answer was obvious.
Xian was alive in the present.
"I should be able to see the truly living Xian here—to see that legendary figure from mythology, the one who laid out the Nine Continents world and influenced the childhood of the Nine-Grain Child. The Mad Human Ancestor."
"He lives in the city gate of time."
Ning Zheng wandered around, looking here and there.
The familiar street scene struck him as quite interesting.
He walked along more than half the