At the summit of Mount Tai, beside the Jade Emperor Temple, on the Sun Viewing Platform.
Li Qingshan stood with his hands behind his back, the spiritual jade on his Green Lotus Dao Crown shimmering with a warm luster under the blood-red sunset.
It complements the burning sunset on the horizon.
The edges of his plain-colored Daoist robe fluttered in the biting mountain wind, making a rustling sound, but he remained as steadfast as an ancient rock.
With his eyes half-closed, his divine sense had already spread out like an invisible tide, meticulously enveloping the entire majestic Mount Tai.
From the cliff carvings at the foot of the mountain, etched with the marks of time, to the ruins at the summit, bearing witness to ancient legends.
The deep pulse of every inch of land, the faint flow of every wisp of earth vein dragon energy, were all clearly reflected in his vast sea of consciousness.
A grand and ancient meaning has settled here, as if silently telling the secrets of ancient times.
"Keep going, give it your all! The Southern Heavenly Gate is just ahead!"
From the winding, snake-like stone steps below, came Zhou Yi's familiar and energetic voice.
This former student still has a cheerful personality.
With a slight thought, Li Qingshan focused the image instantly.
Ye Fan walked steadily in the middle of the crowd, his forehead beaded with sweat, yet his breathing remained long and even.
His gaze swept over the stone carvings and ancient pines along the way, as if he were searching for something.
Lin Jia was dressed in a neat light blue tracksuit.
He would occasionally offer his considerate support to his female classmate Liu Yiyi, who was clearly exhausted.
The stray hairs on his forehead were damp with sweat, clinging to his smooth skin, which only added to his resolute appearance.
" Ye Fan, do you think this Tai region is truly as recorded in ancient texts, where seventy emperors performed the Fengshan ceremony?"
Lin Jia, slightly out of breath, glanced at the heavily weathered seal script marks on the stone wall. "I vaguely remember a documentary mentioning that the stone tablet erected by Qin Shi Huang during his Fengshan ceremony had long since broken and been lost to the annals of history."
Ye Fan nodded, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the lines of time:
"The Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Feng and Shan Sacrifices, does indeed record that the Yellow Emperor performed the Feng ceremony at Mount Tai and the Shan Tingting."
However, the era is too distant, and the traces of that time have probably been completely worn away by thousands of years of wind and rain.
He looked up at the Jade Emperor Peak, which seemed to be burning with golden flames under the setting sun.
A fleeting, almost imperceptible look of bewilderment crossed his eyes. "However, the atmosphere here is indeed unique."
Standing here, worldly worries vanish, and the heart naturally finds peace.
"Ha, most of them are just legends embellished by later generations."
Liu Yunzhi's voice carried a hint of dismissive arrogance as he walked at the front of the group.
The expensive watch on her wrist reflected a cold, hard luster in the afterglow of the setting sun.
Beside me were two classmates with slightly obsequious expressions. "In today's world, scientific evidence is what matters."
Those mysterious and esoteric things are best left unsaid; they shouldn't be taken seriously.
Look at the so-called "fairy caves" and "spiritual traces" on this mountain.
In essence, it is nothing more than ordinary rock fissures, formed by years of erosion by wind and rain.
Li Qingshan's divine sense flowed like mercury, silently penetrating Ye Fan's body.
I could clearly sense the immense blood and energy hidden deep within, yet suppressed by this degenerate world.
Its vital energy is like a dormant ancient volcano, its surface calm, but its interior contains terrifying potential that can shake the heavens and the earth.
To his delight, the simplified version of the " Crystal Visualization Method " that he had casually given guidance to and taught back then was still available.
It had already taken root and sprouted in Ye Fan's sea of consciousness. At this moment, Ye Fan's spiritual power was more refined and his spiritual perception was more acute than that of the people around him.
"Look over there! Isn't that the Bixia Temple?"
Li Xiaoman's voice came from a little ahead; she was pointing to a cluster of red walls and green tiles nestled among the pines and cypresses in the distance.
He explained to Kaide beside him that the temple appeared solemn and mysterious in the twilight.
Kaide held up his camera, his azure eyes filled with curiosity and amazement at the ancient culture of the East, the shutter clicking incessantly.
"Li, did the dragon of your China really exist?"
The tour guide just mentioned " Black Dragon Pool," which is said to be the dwelling place of a divine dragon.
Upon hearing this, Li Xiaoman couldn't help but smile, gently gathering her hair that had been ruffled by the mountain breeze.
"That's just a beautiful legend woven by the ancients based on their awe and imagination of the power of nature."
Just like the unicorns and elves in your Western mythology.
Look at the stone inscriptions scattered throughout these mountains; much of their content consists of later embellishments and expressions of sentiment by scholars and writers.
Kaide nodded as if he understood, but his gaze remained drawn to the spectacular sight of the sea of clouds, and he raised his camera again.
At that moment, Li Qingshan's divine sense, which stretched across the sky, suddenly tightened.
Like a sharp sword, it pierced through the thin atmosphere and reached the cold, desolate depths of space.
Nine enormous, terrifying dragon corpses floated silently in the Eternal darkness.
Their black scales, as if cast from black iron, gleamed with a cold and hard metallic luster under the distant starlight.
The colossal bodies, hundreds of meters long, stretched across the Void, like ancient mountain ranges that had lost their life, carrying an unchanging desolation and deathly stillness.
Each dragon corpse had a thick, black divine iron chain bound to the grotesque tail end.
The chains, etched with countless intricate and ancient runes, were taut and straight at this moment.
Together they pulled the massive, unadorned bronze coffin, twenty meters long, in the center.
A vast, boundless aura, seemingly originating from the very beginning of the universe, is emanating from the endless Void.
"The trajectories of time and space have finally converged here."
Li Qingshan parted his lips slightly, murmuring silently. In the depths of his eyes, it seemed as if a river of stars flowed, and the universe was born and destroyed.
Half an hour later, Ye Fan and his group finally reached the Jade Emperor Summit.
The wind at the mountaintop was even fiercer than that at the mountainside, causing everyone's clothes to flutter and their hair to dance wildly.
The blood-red setting sun slowly sank below the distant horizon, dyeing the boundless sea of clouds a magnificent golden-red.
Looking into the distance, the Yellow River, known as the Mother River, resembles a golden jade belt, winding and coiling across the vast land.
This scene truly allows one to experience the grandeur and pride of "standing at the summit, looking down upon all the mountains below."
"So, so beautiful!"
Liu Yiyi excitedly took out her phone, trying to capture this fairy-tale scene.
The sea of clouds and the setting sun intertwine in the lens, creating a breathtaking scene. "If we had known Thailand was so magnificent, we should have come here the year we graduated!"
Zhou Yi leaned against the white marble railing, slightly out of breath. He took out a bottle of mineral water from his backpack, handed it to Ye Fan beside him, and smiled:
We made a promise back then to climb Thailand together.
As a result, after your defense, your advisor dragged you into organizing those rare and ancient books, which finally made up for the regret of that year.
Ye Fan took the water, thanked him, but his gaze involuntarily drifted towards the distant Sun Viewing Peak.
There stand several huge rocks, said to be the site of an altar where emperors held the Fengshan ceremony in ancient times, bearing countless historical dust and mysterious legends.
"Boom!"
Suddenly, a thunderous roar, so deep it was almost muffled, exploded without warning!
The thunder did not originate from the clouds overhead, but from the far, deeper heavens, from the Void of the universe!
The sound was mixed with a dull thud, like metal colliding violently, making one's eardrums ring and one's heart pound.
The wind on the mountaintop suddenly became violent, whipping up gravel and dust, and causing the copper bells on the eaves of the Jade Emperor Temple to shake wildly.
It emitted rapid and chaotic sounds, as if foreshadowing some earth-shattering change.
Everyone on the mountaintop involuntarily stopped what they were doing, looking up in astonishment at the sky dyed red by the sunset.
Behind the magnificent clouds, several tiny black dots suddenly appeared.
The black dot rapidly magnified, accompanied by an increasingly clear and awe-inspiring sound of wind and thunder.
It was no ordinary thunder; it sounded more like the mournful cry and roar of a dragon from ancient mythology.
Enveloped in the desolation and supreme majesty of the primordial era, it swept across the entire world!
"What, what is that?"
Liu Yiyi screamed, nearly dropping her phone.
The black dots revealed their breathtaking outlines at a visible speed: nine enormous, unimaginably massive dragon-like creatures.
It fiercely tore through the clouds and descended upon the world!
The dragon horns on their heads were crystal clear, like carved purple jade, shimmering with a mysterious light;
The sharp dragon claws gleamed with a cold light, seemingly capable of easily tearing through the Void;
Its entire body was covered in black scales, which gleamed with a cold and hard dark light in the afterglow of the setting sun.
However, what is even more chilling is that these nine beings, which exude both holiness and majesty, are all lifeless corpses!
Their ferocious tails were all firmly bound by extremely thick, long black divine iron chains engraved with runes.
At the other end of the chain, they jointly pull a huge, ancient bronze coffin covered with verdigris and the marks of time!