Chapter 217: Servant of Time

Arriving before the purple pavilion, Zhou Qing stood before the closed doors and hesitated for a moment. Just as he reached out to push them open, the doors creaked and swung wide on their own.

Two small mages, similar in size and appearance to the Sancai boy he had encountered earlier, stepped out from within.

"Little fellow, why are you still standing there in a daze? The Master has summoned you; why don't you hurry inside?" one of them snapped, his tone filled with sudden, sharp indignation.

Zhou Qing, unamused by the boy's outburst, let out a soft sigh. Instead of moving toward the pavilion, he sat down on the wooden railing of the veranda.

"Since I am at your mercy and lack the strength to resist, do as you please—kill me or carve me up. But a person must maintain their dignity while they live. Do you truly think I am intimidated by your shouting?"

The two mages exchanged glances. The one who had shouted raised his sleeve, preparing to strike.

"Liangyi, this is the Master's guest. I know you have a fiery temper, but there must be a limit," the other boy intervened. He then turned to Zhou Qing with a smile. "Go on in, little fellow. We mean you no harm. If we wanted you dead, we wouldn't have brought you here."

"You are not as arrogant as your companion, but you are only a child. Does your conscience not prick you, acting as an elder before me?" Zhou Qing retorted.

"Sancai, Liangyi, and I have been on the path of cultivation for nearly ten thousand years. Why should we not call you a little fellow?"

"Ten thousand years?" Zhou Qing’s heart skipped a beat. He studied the two boys closely for a moment before finally stepping into the pavilion.

He climbed three levels and encountered a woman in the grand hall on the fourth floor. After a conversation with her, he left the Sumeru Temple filled with profound confusion. From her, he had learned a startling truth: this world was not governed by only three supreme beings—the Creator, the Heavenly Dao, and Fate. There were, in fact, eight such supreme existences.

The woman at the Sumeru Temple was a servant of the Lord of Time, one of the eight. She did not explain why she had appeared in the mortal realm or within the temple, but as Zhou Qing departed, she showed him a jade pendant.

It was identical in shape to one Zhou Qing possessed, though his own had long since changed in color. She revealed that the two pendants were originally a pair, carved from the same spirit stone at the dawn of the world, and had belonged to the Lord of Time. While she did not explain why they had been separated, Zhou Qing began to grasp the underlying reasons. Most importantly, she revealed why his jade had turned blood-red.

***

As the sun rose over a desolate mountain peak, Zhou Qing sat alone on a jagged rock, staring at the dawn with a heavy heart, clutching the blood-red pendant.

His journey to the Sumeru Temple had not only allowed him to avenge his master, Wu Luochen, but had also shed light on the origins of this jade. Originally belonging to his grandmaster, Tian Yizi, the jade had passed to Wu Luochen and then to him. Given that it was a supreme divine relic belonging to the Lord of Time, how had it fallen into the hands of Tian Yizi, a mere denizen of the Heavenly Realm? Even though his grandmaster was powerful, Zhou Qing knew from their past conversations that an impassable chasm existed between the Heavenly beings and the supreme ones.

The woman had also revealed that he could use this blood-stained jade to resurrect the one he loved. After Lin Yunxi’s death, the jade had turned red, and every time he touched it, he felt a strange, lingering aura. Only now did he understand: the jade was saturated with the lifeblood of his beloved, and through it, her soul could be reclaimed.

Initially, Zhou Qing was overjoyed; this gave him a new dream. Without a dream, a man is no better than a salted fish. Upon arriving in this world, his dream had been to attain immortality, but years of wandering had taught him that true immortality required reaching the ultimate end of the Dao—the mastery of the Rules themselves. Only the supreme beings could achieve that.

Before yesterday, he had believed only three such beings existed. Now, knowing there were eight, the odds seemed just as impossible. He had spent years wandering the world, increasing his cultivation and lifespan, but he had never truly cared for longevity itself—he only wanted to settle the two great burdens in his heart. Now that one was finished and the other held a glimmer of hope, he found he could not be happy.

On the road back from Mount Qingcheng the previous night, a chilling realization had taken root: everything in his life—being taken in by Wu Luochen, his life in Jinling, his meeting and falling in love with Lin Yunxi, and their tragic separation—felt as though it had been meticulously arranged from the very beginning. The connection between his own fate and the origin of the blood-red jade left him trembling with a deep, encroaching fear.