A Door to Another History

“Brother Zhuge, it’s me! Li Huowang!” Li Huowang pointed at the body being controlled by Li Sui, launching into a frantic explanation until Zhuge Yuan finally understood what had happened.

Once Zhuge Yuan had accepted the explanation, Li Huowang wasted no time. “Brother Zhuge, we need to leave! Now! This place isn’t safe! The Supervisory Heavenly Office of Great Liang and the Zuowandao are already fighting. If you stay any longer, you’ll get caught in the crossfire!”

Zhuge Yuan shook his head and pointed toward the palace ahead. “No. We’ve already begun the ‘clearing the monarch’s side’ operation. There’s no sense in stopping halfway.”

Regardless of what Li Huowang had just experienced, from Zhuge Yuan’s perspective, he had entered the palace alongside others to force the walking corpse boy-emperor of Great Qi to abdicate.

All around him now, military generals in full armor and various civil officials clustered around Zhuge Yuan, their deference making it clear he was the one leading them.

Seeing Li Huowang’s frantic distress, Zhuge Yuan said with unshakable confidence, “Rest assured. I have everything under control. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Li Huowang looked around. The difference was stark: the region bathed in golden light was Great Liang, while the area covered by snow was Great Qi. Gold within, white without—the demarcation was painfully clear.

More importantly, the strange chanting from Great Liang had abruptly ceased, as if blocked at the boundary. The Heart-Core’s ability was so miraculous that it could even repel the influence of a Siming.

“How much longer, then?” Li Huowang asked again.

“At most the time it takes to burn an incense stick. The meditation chamber where the Empress Dowager chants Buddhist sutras is just ahead. The boy-emperor is in there as well. We simply need to ask him to issue an edict of abdication.”

Li Huowang glanced at the body Li Sui was controlling, thought for a moment, then gritted his teeth. “Fine. I’ll help you. Let’s finish this fast!”

Zhuge Yuan pressed forward, and the environment around him shifted accordingly. Some of the combatants nearby were also swept into his domain.

But at this moment, it seemed that neither the Supervisory Heavenly Office agents nor the Zuowandao had any intention of bothering Zhuge Yuan.

Watching these people dart past him, only to transform into fleeing palace maids and eunuchs, Zhuge Yuan seemed to recall something. His brow furrowed, slowly tightening.

When the door to the meditation chamber was suddenly thrown open, a low, droning chant accompanied by the rhythmic tock of a wooden fish rushed out to meet them.

“Sa-pra-pha-la-ye, tva-i-ta a-rya, na-mo-na-ra-kin-chi…”

The entire chamber was packed with yellow-robed monks sitting in lotus position. They formed ring after ring around the center, where an old abbot in a kasaya sat with his back to them, a razor in hand, shaving the head of a pale, death-gray child.

Li Huowang recognized that child. The Zuowandao had once disguised themselves in his likeness before him. He was the walking corpse boy-emperor of Great Qi.

“Taking Buddhist tonsure? Have the monks of Zhengde Temple all gone mad? Making a zombie take refuge in the Buddha?” someone said, but the monks paid no attention, continuing their work as if nothing had been said.

The razor scraped gently until the last strand of hair fell away.

“Amitabha. Good, good. The three thousand worldly afflictions are now severed. Your Dharma name is ‘Greed-Queller.’ From now on, you are a disciple of Zhengde Temple. If anyone dares to act against you, they are acting against Zhengde Temple.”

With that, the old monk in the kasaya slowly turned his head. When Li Huowang saw his face, he froze, the words tumbling out involuntarily. “Monk?!”

The old abbot’s face—there was no mistaking it. It was him! It was the hallucination-monk who had been by his side!

In this realm, the monk was just an old, temple-less vagrant. But in Great Qi, he was the abbot of Zhengde Temple!

In that instant, a flood of understanding crashed over Li Huowang. This Great Qi was not the Great Qi of a thousand years ago. Coming to Zhuge Yuan’s side was not traveling through time to a millennium past—it was arriving on a different timeline.

Li Huowang instinctively looked up at Zhuge Yuan beside him, remembering his alias: the Storyteller. He also recalled the sign across from the Supervisory Heavenly Office, which threatened severe punishment for privately printing historical records.

“Zhuge Yuan’s Great Qi… is another history of this chaotic world!”

All these pieces slammed together in Li Huowang’s brain. He had never understood what was happening around Zhuge Yuan, but now he suddenly grasped what a Heart-Core truly was.

It was a door. A door leading to another history!

The Zuowandao who had come before were actually the Zuowandao from that other history! And in this history, the monk had become the abbot of Zhengde Temple!

While these thoughts were still churning in Li Huowang’s mind, Zhuge Yuan said something he didn’t catch. The entire meditation chamber of Zhengde Temple monks rose to their feet with a thunderous hong.

As they pressed their palms together in greeting, a host of sinister, flickering eyes—some large, some small—appeared and disappeared from the ordination scars on their scalps.

The chanting grew louder, so loud that the corners of the giant Buddha statue on the wall began to curl upward in a faint smile.

“Masters! If you are ascetics who eat vegetarian food and chant sutras, wouldn’t it be unseemly to be so entangled in worldly affairs?” Zhuge Yuan snapped open a scroll. The next moment, several monks in the chamber vanished without a trace.

He was using the Heart-Turbid within the painting to hide them away.

“HUFF!” The monks clapped their hands in unison, their eyes bulging wide as if they were wrathful Vajras. Then, like a peacock spreading its tail, a thousand bloodied, flesh-raw arms burst from their backs.

Just as a fight seemed inevitable, the entire meditation chamber began to shake violently. Then, that strange sound that could loosen a person’s ten emotions and eight sufferings rang out.

The moment the sound hit, the Great Qi citizens around Zhuge Yuan collapsed, screaming in agony. Their bodies began to distort and twist chaotically.

“What’s going on?!” Li Huowang spun around. The enormous vertical eye of Great Liang stood there now, towering like a mountain.

“Brother Zhuge!! We can’t stay any longer! Whatever that thing from Great Liang is, it’s starting to affect Great Qi too!” Li Huowang clamped his hands over his ears and screamed.

Facing this situation, Zhuge Yuan only gave a cold, contemptuous smile. “Hmph! Don’t try to deceive me! Even if you’ve grown to such a colossal size, so what? The false is always false!”

With that, he pulled the old almanac from his bosom and began writing furiously. But before he could finish, the giant eye suddenly snapped open wide. Zhuge Yuan dropped to one knee in agony, a web of translucent, umbilical-cord-like threads flickering into visibility across his body. The black clouds in the sky roiled violently.

Li Huowang could barely move. If this continued, he and Zhuge Yuan were going to die here!

Making a split-second decision, Li Huowang gritted his teeth, pulled out his dagger, and drew a deep gash across his own throat.

Shhhhhh… The blood-red Thousand Greats Record unfurled across the ground in an instant.

“Wood-Liver! Spleen-Earth! Lung-Metal! Kidney-Water! Heart-Fire! Intercalating the Five Phases!”

As Li Huowang slapped his five viscera onto the scroll, his five senses began to merge. He perceived the presence of Bashe.

The red bamboo slips of the Thousand Greats Record twisted into writhing worms that burrowed into his body with lightning speed. They devoured the shredded flesh, tangled with one another, and bred endlessly. In no time, they had filled the empty cavity of Li Huowang’s chest and began to spill out.

But for all the horror of his body, Li Huowang himself felt excellent. The pain was gone. His mind was no longer a mess.

And even though that giant vertical eye stared as wide as it could, that strange sound could no longer affect him at all.

Intercalating the Five Phases could not be used lightly. It required sacrificing the five viscera. A life could only be used once. But Li Huowang didn’t care. After all, this wasn’t his body right now.

It was Bei Feng’s.