Sound of Heaven's Questions

Sure enough, as though seized by a nervous impulse, Mu Bai reached out to pull a floating root beside him. The moment he exerted force, the deep pool began to shake. Then the bottom of the pool seemed to open into a great maw. The whirlpool tore and the currents surged, and an immense force effortlessly dragged Mu Bai into a cave beneath the pool, as though he had been swallowed into the mountain's belly.

With a splash, Mu Bai fell into a shallow puddle. He reached out to feel his surroundings. They felt slimy, probably covered in years of moss, and falling water pattered drop by drop.

Mu Bai stood and spread his divine sense to survey the cave. It stretched straight ahead, opening into an extremely spacious area a dozen or so zhang away. Tens of thousands of dwellings built of earth, stone, and massive timbers stood in orderly rows, looking every bit like a great tribe hidden in a cave and forgotten by the world. The Underground Dark River flowed slowly through the tribe, bound for somewhere unknown.

There were torches on the cave walls as well. Mu Bai waved his hand, sending out Divine Crow flames to light a nearby torch. With a series of swishes, over a thousand torches, including those above the tribe, simultaneously flared with white flames, twinkling into a starry sky within the pitch-black cavern. A full moon hung among them. Its cold, clear light spilled down, illuminating the tribe as though frost carpeted the ground.

Mu Bai suspected this full moon was the one that had caused the white wolf's death.

The tribe was utterly silent, as though all its people had suddenly vanished at once, leaving these dwellings abandoned for ages. It was deeply eerie. Clearly, this was no ordinary tribe. Quite apart from its greater size than the White Wolf Tribe, the wondrous sight of torches becoming stars in the night was something Mu Bai had never seen or heard of.

This was precisely the ideal place to explore for treasures and find opportunities!

He lacked everything but time. Suppressing the wild joy and doubts in his heart, Mu Bai leaped toward the tribe and began exploring its dwellings one by one from the outskirts. Pots, bowls, ladles, and basins were neatly arranged, and there was no shortage of utensils or clothing. Yet however he searched, he found not a single unusual object. He reached out to touch a door beam, and it was like touching drifting ash. The entire dwelling and everything within it silently crumbled to dust, leaving only Mu Bai standing there dumbfounded.

"Pah, pah..."

Mu Bai waved away the drifting ash, and his visions of finding treasures and opportunities scattered into dust along with it.

"There's an altar in the center of the tribe!"

Unwilling to give up, Mu Bai left those dwellings that could not withstand a touch alone and flew straight to the tribe's center. With a hum, everything around him came alive.

Countless people knelt in worship as columns of signal smoke rose. A silver-haired elder in gray robes knelt at the front. They were worshipping a great stone statue. The statue gazed up at the sky, one hand pointing into the endless void. Its eyes seemed intent on seeing through that boundless emptiness, on questioning the very heavens to their breaking point.

Mu Bai descended to the ground and, with caution and uncertainty, quietly approached the prostrate tribespeople. No one noticed his intrusion. He studied the people before him, yet could not clearly make out a single face.

All of this was an illusion, yet all of it was so real that Mu Bai's intrusion seemed the illusion instead.

Suddenly, a ringing cry sounded. A Red-Gold Divine Crow flew from the statue's hand, beating its wings as it circled beneath the starry sky. Its enormous body blotted out the starlight filling the heavens.

"A Divine Crow? The Haibei Tribe?"

Mu Bai could not believe his eyes. Apart from the Haibei Tribe, what other tribe worshipped the Divine Crow as its ancestral spirit?

Yet this clearly was not the Haibei Tribe.

Looking again at the Heaven-Questioning Statue, he felt a silent sense of familiarity well up within his mind. In a daze, Mu Bai heard a voice questioning heaven from within the void.

"At the beginning of remotest antiquity, who passed down its tale? Before above and below took form, how could they be examined? When darkness and light were dim and obscure, who could fathom their limits? When all was a swirling, shapeless semblance, how could it be known? Brightness and darkness-why did time become so? Yin and yang joined threefold-what was their origin, what their transformation? The heavens circled in nine layers-who planned and measured them? Whose achievement was this, and who first fashioned it..."

The thunderous voice questioning heaven resounded through his heart. Mu Bai listened, becoming entranced in turn.

Let me ask you, vast heavens: where did you come from? Who opened heaven and earth, and who established the great Dao of this world? The sun and moon alternate, cold and heat turn in cycles-who created the myriad things of this world to multiply and grow within you? And who am I? Who holds the teeming masses in their sway!

Mu Bai's mind trembled as he felt the desolation of those questions directed at heaven. Suddenly, the sky-blotting Divine Crow hurtled toward him. It came so swiftly and fiercely that he had no chance to dodge. A dazzling golden light filled his vision, and the Red-Gold Divine Crow seemed to pass through his body, vanishing into his chest.

Mu Bai opened his eyes. He felt no change in his body, but the Three-Legged Crow Cauldron the tribal elder had passed to him blazed with dark light, as though erupting with the intense radiance of creation's very origin. It abruptly passed through Mu Bai's chest, leaving a Three-Legged Crow Cauldron Mark there, still flashing with dazzling dark radiance.

The Artifact Spirit Ancestor had yet to awaken, and Mu Bai did not know what change had overtaken the Three-Legged Crow Cauldron. At a stir of his mind, the Three-Legged Crow Cauldron emerged from his chest again, spinning and giving off a lustrous dark glow. With another stir of his mind, it immediately turned back into a mark and returned to his chest. It was truly as nimble and marvelous as moving his own arm and fingers.

"This is a good thing, too. It saves anyone discovering the Crow Cauldron. Otherwise, I'd probably have a hard time keeping it!"

As he concentrated on sensing the changes in his body, a sudden crash rang out. Heaven collapsed and earth split apart. Countless stars fell to the ground, and towering waves of lava surged from the earth. In an instant, searing crimson filled heaven and earth, and a tremendous force blasted Mu Bai into the dark river.

He had no idea how deep this dark river ran or where it flowed. The mortal danger pursued Mu Bai like a great hand, driving him to flee deeper into the river regardless of everything. Plunging headfirst into the water, Mu Bai opened his eyes and saw a strangely shaped fish swimming leisurely past him.

Heaven and earth stopped spinning. Everything around him fell quiet, and the icy waters of the deep pool chilled him to his muscles and bones.

"Back in the deep pool again?"

Mu Bai swept his divine sense through his surroundings. Everything was exactly as it had been before he was caught in that wrenching whirlpool. He could not tell whether his experience in the cave beneath the pool had been real or illusory, but the thunderous voice questioning heaven still lingered in his ears.

Who created the myriad things of this world to multiply and grow within you? And who am I? Whose fate holds the teeming masses in its sway!

After a long while in shock, Mu Bai roused himself from the Sound of Heaven's Questions. The thunderous crashes above the deep pool had ceased. Presumably, the Silver-Winged Giant Tiger had left.

Gently patting the pool water, Mu Bai shot upward, moving as freely as though walking on level ground. It was as if he were a fish and the water the world he lived in. Puzzled, Mu Bai had no idea when he had acquired this wondrous affinity for water. But with his life at stake, he steadied his mind and slowly rose toward the surface, ready to dive immediately at any disturbance.

Silently slipping above the surface, Mu Bai surveyed his surroundings. The waterfall roared without pause, but the giant trees around it stood silent. After another careful inspection confirmed that the Silver-Winged Giant Tiger was nowhere nearby, Mu Bai surfaced completely and quietly climbed ashore.

He circulated his soul power to dry his soaked body, briefly checked his bearings, then silently disappeared into the dense forest and immediately broke into a headlong sprint. An incense stick's worth of time later, judging that the danger had passed, Mu Bai summoned Golden Roc with his divine sense. Golden Roc swooped over with a series of squawks.

Mu Bai leaped onto Golden Roc's broad, feathered back. The strong wind tossed his long hair, and a keen light shone in his eyes.

"Go!"

At Mu Bai's quiet command, Golden Roc beat his wings and swept over the endless dense forest, while Mu Bai felt thoroughly elated. Although he had found no opportunity in that mysterious cave, he knew how to be content. He had first snatched food from a tiger's jaws, then escaped death. If he still did not know contentment, he could hardly blame heaven for striking him with five thunderbolts.

Yet reality proved otherwise. As Golden Roc soared through the night sky, Mu Bai looked up to see the Silver-Winged Giant Tiger with its enormous wings spread level, the cold moonlight at its back, waiting coldly for him.

"Little Roc, you can fly fast, can't you! Run!"

Mu Bai wished he could turn Golden Roc around himself. Without choosing a direction, Golden Roc beat his wings and fled. A sky-shaking tiger roar immediately erupted behind them, nearly shattering Golden Roc's mind. As he plummeted, Mu Bai hurriedly summoned the Spirit Light Sword to jolt Golden Roc's mind awake, and they skimmed the dense forest, fleeing into the distance.

The Silver-Winged Giant Tiger coldly watched the man and bird fleeing for their lives. Then its silver wings stirred, and it abruptly leaped away from the face of the moon, like a meteor in the night, tracing an arc as it swiftly closed in.

"Whether we live or die is up to you, Little Roc!"

Mu Bai stuffed a pill into Golden Roc's mouth. Golden Roc could spare no attention to swallowing it and simply flew desperately onward. A pill might be good, but his life mattered more.

With a crack, a silver bolt of lightning struck right beside Golden Roc's tail, blasting apart a swath of dense forest and setting his tail feathers alight. The burning pain made Golden Roc grimace and fly even harder, shooting away at tremendous speed with a hiss and a trail of white smoke.

Before a second thunderclap could sound, the Silver-Winged Giant Tiger's forepaw came sweeping fiercely toward them.

"Drop!"

Mu Bai shouted, and Golden Roc understood at once. As though his body had gone rigid, he dropped straight down, barely evading the Silver-Winged Giant Tiger's furious blow.

"There's a household up ahead!"

Without waiting for Mu Bai's command, Golden Roc had also spotted two thatched cottages deep in the forest. Their lights shone in the darkness, guiding those with nowhere left to turn, and he immediately plunged toward them. Even a single blade of thatch seemed like a life-saving straw in a boundless ocean.