New Year of 361.
Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng worshiped Heaven.
This peerless mythical emperor had made a grand display, leading countless ministers in earnestly beseeching the gods to reveal divine signs and issue an oracle. The entire continent knew about it. How could Zhu Zhengwei not?
"I never expected the world in the dreamscape to develop so rapidly and become so prosperous."
Zhu Zhengwei shook his head. He was currently overseas, sitting in a private boat and traveling everywhere while basking in the sunlight.
"I never expected that middle-aged traveler I saw beneath the tea shed back then—the leader who yearned for reform—would actually make it this far. He was destined to leave a glorious mark on the history of human civilization in this world!"
However, he had no intention of concerning himself with that for the time being, because he still had other matters to attend to.
For example, drinking tea.
For example, fishing.
For example, figuring out how to harvest the chives.
Of course, cultivation was still the most important thing.
"Cultivating the Qi Consumption Method here is far better than doing so in reality. This four-dimensional world is wonderful. With Mining Machines digging up 'qi,' I can cultivate and strengthen my spirit."
As he felt the salty, damp sea breeze and watched the waves surge beneath the blue sky, he felt utterly content.
To be honest.
Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng was probably just a pretext.
Although it was indeed his own wish—the emperor of the age had far too many questions about the entire world and the future of humanity—the mastermind behind it could not have been without the handiwork of his younger brother.
And Zhang Zhi had been looking for him for more than a day or two. It was naturally clear what he wanted to do.
He had accumulated far too many questions in his heart.
As for Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng, this unprecedentedly great human emperor who could be called a warlord, he was indeed old and approaching decline. However, he would not die so soon. He was merely putting on a miserable act.
He knew what was what.
"Speaking of which, although I've lived for four or five hundred years like Zhang Zhi and am also an immortal, I'm only at the level of an ordinary Blessing Shaman."
After all, although he had not wasted his time, he had indeed spent most of it dealing with various matters outside.
One had to understand that he was effectively the "only player" in this Mobile Dream Network world. He was even equivalent to a GM, capable of interfering with the world and its natural laws, modifying some parameters, and changing the weather, wind, rain, thunder, and lightning.
But anything more difficult could not be used so casually.
That would cause the foundation of the entire four-dimensional network to collapse, with extremely serious consequences.
Simply put, this was like a program. One could not recklessly alter the underlying data, or it would crash.
Moreover, this world was becoming increasingly stable, drawing closer to reality. It would become a colossal world formed from the convergence of countless computing resources, so he grew increasingly afraid to act rashly.
Gurgle, gurgle.
At that moment, a huge shadowy crab emerged from the water.
Its shell was shattered, and one could vaguely tell that it had once been severely wounded. It had yet to recover from that battle.
"Mr. Krabs, what happened?" Zhu Zhengwei asked calmly from the deck.
The little fellow from back then had grown into a colossal creature, but Zhu Zhengwei had raised him for decades, so he naturally still remembered his appearance and who had created them.
During his voyages these days, Mr. Krabs would occasionally bring him food.
Although they had little intelligence, as beasts, they still retained a deep-seated terror of him in the depths of their souls.
After all, back then, he had eaten takoyaki, braised hairy crabs, and grilled scallops in front of them every day in the laboratory. That had been enough to root their fear deep in their souls.
Gurgle, gurgle!
Black Bronze Cloud Crab God exhaled bubbles and sent out a plea for help, its manner both awed and respectful.
"You're saying something happened?" Zhu Zhengwei stood on the deck and asked curiously. "Someone's bullying your big brother?"
Seaside Ghost Country.
Tuna Port had already been surrounded on all sides by towering stone walls.
Among the Ocean Clock Family, elderly Zhong Qingyu quietly sailed out to sea aboard a huge ship. She brought along an old white-haired man lying in a sickbed, and her younger brother embarked on the distant voyage with her.
"Little brother, do you still remember what we were like as children at that port?"
The old woman sat on a bench and gently stroked the face of the old man on the sickbed on the deck.
"Back then, I worked with all my might to earn money so I could support your schooling. You didn't disappoint me either. You led our family to glory and became the finance minister, second to one and above thousands."
"You're about to die of old age, and so am I."
She sighed, filled with endless melancholy.
In the blink of an eye, she was already over a hundred years old. Although she had swallowed wind and consumed qi, like Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng, she was approaching the end of her life. She sat aboard the great ship, letting the sea breeze wash over her.
She finally understood why those Ancestral Shamans who had swallowed wind and consumed qi had died of old age in their hundreds, their lifespans not much longer than those of ordinary mortals.
Because the qi could not descend below the neck.
She had an ageless head and terrifying divine power, yet possessed the aging, withered body of an ordinary mortal. Her heart, bones, skin, spine, hands, and feet—every withered organ told her that she was heading toward final decline.
At that moment, the two old people who controlled most of the nation's wealth traveled aboard the great ship, watching the coastline as it gradually receded into the distance, leaving the port and the bustle behind.
"That was once our home."
"Once we leave on this journey from death to life, we'll never return."
She took one last look at the port. Her cloudy eyes were bloodshot, and her expression held reminiscence, uncertainty, deep pain, struggle, and a silent fear bordering on hysteria.
She suddenly recalled her youth.
Her father had killed her mother, and they had lived without a mother. Their alcoholic father—a bald, potbellied sailor—had beaten the two siblings from a young age. Until one day, when she saw her brother with blood pouring from his split head and one leg crippled, she could bear it no longer. The next morning, they began living entirely without parents.
She had begun earning money with her small shoulders, taking odd jobs at the docks. With her thin arms, she had hauled fishing nets and caught fish to pay for her brother's schooling. She had rushed about, labored, struggled, and worked hard, living the mundane life of most poor people—until she met the man who changed her life forever, that tall and heroic figure she would never forget.
"Over the years, the two of us kept climbing higher, making something of ourselves and achieving success." The old woman's voice was low and hoarse. "But when we look back on our lives, what meaning did they really have?"
The old man on the sickbed opened his mouth, as though trying to object.
The old woman seemed to read his expression and said, "I know. You're saying that life has meaning. After all, before Mother died, she hoped the two of us would live happily and have a home. We were nearly successful after all these years. I have a successful younger brother, but I'm still missing a man who deeply loves me."
"Unfortunately, he left me."
"All these years, every day, every day, every day, I painted portraits of him. A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand paintings filled my castle and hung in every room, yet they could never fill my heart."
"Later, I regretted it countless times. I should have drugged his food and imprisoned him. That way, the man I loved would never have left me, and the two of us siblings would finally have had a happy home."
"Every day, every day, every day, I tended the flowers he left me, hoping that he would see them again when he returned. Until that day, when I ate them and felt a tremendous, incomparable happiness."
The white-haired old man on the sickbed seemed accustomed to this. His vacant eyes turned aside as he looked at the endless sea outside the ship.
"Are you still blaming me for killing the first woman? She wasn't good enough for you."
"The second woman you fell in love with was merely greedy for our wealth. She would have become a second unfaithful mother and caused a second tragedy."
The old man on the sickbed still could not say a word.
He was too old, nearing the end of his life. Even speaking seemed to drain all the strength from his body.
The shadows of their childhood still haunted the siblings.
He would never forget how their drunken father had killed their mother for having an affair, nor how his sister had killed their father to protect him. Even more, he would never forget how that sister who should have been gentle had gone mad that day, her sickly frenzy as she brandished a kitchen knife, her eyes crimson and deranged.
From that day onward, his sister had grown even more afraid of losing him, of losing her last family member.
But then that man had appeared and saved his sister, restoring balance to her extreme heart. The two siblings should have gained a happy life, but he had suddenly left without a care, and his sister had become completely extreme.
"You're about to die of old age."
"And I'm about to die of old age too. Everything has already passed."
The old woman continued talking to herself.
"The entire world seems to be becoming unfamiliar. Our relatives, servants, guards, and even Her Majesty the Young Ghost Empress all look at us with extremely greedy, beastlike expressions, waiting for us to die."
When she thought it over carefully and recalled her life—as a human life—it seemed incomparably successful, yet it was no different from that of the vast majority of ordinary mortals.
Glory, wealth, gold and silver jewelry, magnificent castles—she had obtained the ridiculous things people spent their entire lives pursuing.
What had she really been pursuing?
In the end, none of that was what she wanted.
Perhaps human beings were creatures that lived within such a ridiculous social framework.
Zhong Qingyu wore a mocking expression as she looked toward the endless coastline. She spread her arms and shouted, "This life! It's like sunrise and sunset along this coastline, repeating endlessly! The sun and moon circle forever! It's utterly meaningless!"
"What Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng of the 'City of a Hundred Generations' and all those scholars pursue is merely the ultimate greatness that transcends humanity—drinking dew to become divine, swallowing wind and consuming qi. But at its core, that too is the great freedom of transcending living beings!"
"It's freedom!"
"Only for the sake of freedom!"
"For freedom's sake, every form may be cast aside!"
Her loud cries from the deck stirred up ripples, churning the heavens and earth as rolling waves surged outward.
No one knew that this was yet another powerhouse comparable to an emperor, hidden within the Mortal World.
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