The Meaning of Life

Crocodile Ancestor reluctantly put away the Divine Mark Purple Gold Pagoda and prepared to press onward. Without finding hope of becoming an immortal, he would never leave just like that.

Meanwhile, with He Shou Wu's help, Jiang Zhu had gathered the Treasure Medicine around the outskirts. His liver divine treasury was now nearing perfection, and his Nine-Leaf Sword Grass true spirit was more than halfway complete.

He communicated with He Shou Wu, explaining that he wanted to enter seclusion and break through the Dao Palace first heaven, and asked it to stand guard for him.

He Shou Wu understood. It nodded, then shook its head, before hoisting him up and diving into the earth veins, racing through them.

Before long, they arrived beside a cliff, where chaos energy gathered into a great river and flowed down the rock face.

This was the Chaos Waterfall, where the Ruthless Great Emperor had erected a monument to her brother.

A bloodstained garment lay on the cliff, protected by chaos energy. Hundreds of thousands of years had passed, yet it remained undying. Beside it stood the Star Stele, refined from a star the Empress had seized from beyond this world.

There were words on the bloodstained garment. Jiang Zhu's cultivation was still too shallow for him to see through the chaos energy, but he knew what they said.

"I'm going to die... but what will happen to my little sister?"

These were the words the Empress's brother had left behind. After attaining her Dao, the Empress had found this place. Heartbroken beyond endurance, she had let out a mournful sigh that brought the moon crashing down and shook heaven and earth. All of Kunlun had nearly collapsed.

Later, she had refined a star into a stone monument to protect this scrap of bloodstained clothing. The Empress's Dao marks were engraved upon it, and the vast chaos energy flowed from the words on the stele.

Afterward, this supreme miracle had become a weapon-forging ground for Kunlun's powerful beings. Any magical artifact forged with even a single wisp of chaos energy drawn from here would become a precious weapon.

At the same time, this was a place of absolute safety. No living being dared attack here.

It was also close to Dragon Head Peak, where spiritual vitality flourished in abundance. With the added benefit of the Chaos Waterfall, it was indeed an excellent place to cultivate in seclusion.

Although cultivating here was something of a disturbance to the dead, there truly was no better place available to him at present.

Many living beings still inhabited Kunlun, and nourished by its abundant spiritual energy, they were far stronger than Jiang Zhu was now.

Besides, cultivating here meant he no longer needed He Shou Wu to guard him. He could have it bring medicine kings and Treasure Medicine here instead, then harvest them directly once he finished cultivating—a two-pronged approach.

It was practically Qin Shi Huang eating Sichuan peppercorns-a win so overwhelming it left him numb!

Jiang Zhu took out a large mass of precious blood and handed it to He Shou Wu. After accepting it, the herb patted its body with its tendrils, as though saying, "Leave it to me! Just focus on your cultivation."

Watching He Shou Wu dive into the earth veins and depart, Jiang Zhu found a secluded spot nearby to use as his cultivation abode.

A full week passed. His liver divine treasury grew ever greener, producing streams of vital essence as a deity gradually took shape within it.

Throughout this process, his blood and qi continued to grow stronger. His innate essence brimmed with vitality, while his acquired essence constantly nourished him, flowing into the divine treasury and making it ever greener and more crystalline.

His surging blood and qi shot straight into the heavens, forming a crimson pillar of light visible to the naked eye. Its heat was fierce enough to seemingly evaporate rivers.

As blood and qi surged through his body, they gave off peals of dragon cries, occasionally mingled with faint sword chimes, capable of suppressing all beasts. His flesh was like a furnace, circulating blood and qi as it constantly refined spiritual energy.

Boom!

His liver divine treasury rose and settled within the illusory space inside his body. It reached its peak, releasing boundless waves of power.

At the same time, the deity within his liver divine treasury took shape. Astonishingly, it was a blade of grass.

Its entire body was crystalline emerald green, wreathed in azure radiance and brimming with vitality. Nine leaves grew from it, each seemingly engraved with the Great Dao, radiating a sharpness that could cleave the universe apart!

It was none other than the Nine-Leaf Sword Grass, one of the Ten Fiends of antiquity!

His liver divine treasury had reached perfection!

Although having Nine-Leaf Sword Grass as his liver deity surprised him, he quickly put it out of his mind. Some cultivators did not even have deities.

Boundless vitality wreathed his flesh, raising his already exuberant blood and qi to greater heights.

Within the world inside his body, mist swirled thickly. He successfully crossed the barrier and reached the next divine treasury.

The strength of the Dao Palace second realm was countless times greater than that of the first. There truly was an impassable gulf between them.

The Nine-Leaf Sword Grass took root above his head, its sword-shaped leaves pointing out the path ahead.

Soon, Jiang Zhu felt towering waves of heat and abundant yang energy. His next divine treasury was the heart divine treasury.

The order in which he cultivated his divine treasuries followed the generating cycle of the five elements.

The heart divine treasury was the sun of the human body, the source of all vitality, and the foremost of the Dao Palace's five great secret realms.

This divine treasury was the blazing sun among the deities. It employed yang energy to drive the circulation of life force, sustaining the body's undying nature and unceasing vitality.

Jiang Zhu had cultivated his liver divine treasury first, using wood to generate fire and establish a cycle of energy. Cultivating his heart divine treasury now would yield twice the results with half the effort.

Jiang Zhu sat motionless, continually refining precious blood. An endless stream of divine energy entered his body and flowed into his heart divine treasury, directly nourishing the deity shaped like an unopened lotus.

The lotus-shaped divine treasury dispelled the mist. Comfort spread throughout Jiang Zhu's body, his pores opened, and a strange Dao power flowed out, suffusing every inch of his flesh.

"Every realm really is a whole new heaven!"

Ten days later, vital essence surged throughout Jiang Zhu's body, and his blood and qi coiled around him like a dragon. The next instant, he stepped out and arrived directly beside the cliff.

His current round of cultivation had come to an end. Next, he would fully master the Nine-Leaf Sword Grass Transformation!

Jiang Zhu entered the Chaos Waterfall's surroundings. He did not see He Shou Wu, but the place had been thoroughly transformed into an herb field.

Lush Treasure Medicine had been planted beneath the Chaos Waterfall: polygonatum, jade marrow mushrooms, rainbow garment grass, nine-region spirit ginseng, heavenly origin fruit...

Even the youngest were ten-thousand-year-old Treasure Medicine, and there were even several medicine kings among them.

"Kunlun really is rich!"

Jiang Zhu could not help marveling once again. His hands never stopped moving as he took out precious blood to irrigate the Treasure Medicine, while collecting their blood essence and refining it into nine-leaf sword grass origin blood.

By the time he had finished harvesting everything, He Shou Wu returned to the herb field carrying several Treasure Medicine.

Sensing the ever richer plant vitality emanating from Jiang Zhu, He Shou Wu was delighted. Ever since gaining sentience, it had spent hundreds of thousands of years living alone in a muddled haze.

It had witnessed countless others of its kind grow into medicine kings, then wither and disperse between heaven and earth. It did not know the meaning of life, nor had it ever sought that meaning.

Now, it had suddenly encountered a strange member of its own kind. He did not possess a long lifespan. He had to contend with heaven and earth for longevity and with others for the Dao, yet his brief life might blaze with the utmost brilliance.

What, then, was the meaning of life?

Was it its length?

Or its breadth?

He Shou Wu did not understand such things. It simply felt that this brief time since meeting Jiang Zhu had been fascinating. It had someone of its own kind to communicate with and was no longer alone.

Every day, it carried him from place to place to harvest herbs. Places it had traversed countless times before had somehow come alive.

Although it could not cultivate itself, watching Jiang Zhu succeed in cultivation with its help filled it with shared pride. That was why it was willing to help him.