Chapter 86 – The Temple of Eternal Night
“There are no trees in the temple, that temple is hidden inside the snowy mountains, and legend has it that only two days a year it will reveal its true face, and it’s impossible to see it if one’s heart isn’t sincere.”
Sean’s old voice spoke calmly. The temple had an extremely important meaning to him, he was caught back to Qing Guo by Chen Pingping at a great cost because he knew the relationship between the temple and that little girl, and also because he knew where the temple was located, Bitter Lotus, who had gotten the most benefits from the temple, was going to try to kill him to silence him, while that little emperor of Northern Qi had the luxury of being able to get the help of heaven from the temple.
But what is a divine temple? It was nothing more than a temple.
Sean suddenly felt that the first half of his life was fake, only the second half of his life behind bars was real. The old man looked at the darkening sky outside the cave and said with a wooden expression, “Lord Fan, do you believe that there is really a god in this world?”
Fan Xian was silent, thinking of his rebirth and that chest, and nodded, “I believe in the existence of God more than anyone else in this world.”
“What is God?”
“If I know what God is, I am God.”
Sean gave him an appreciative look on his face and said, “It is indeed rare to see so clearly at such a young age as you.” He said after a pause, “But at the time, His Majesty was still young, so he couldn’t see clearly.”
Fan Xian knew that the story was finally about to begin, and couldn’t help but feel a little nervous and expectant.
“Do you know what the world was like thirty years ago?”
“Wei was dominant and could unify the world at any time.”
“Not bad, at that time, the old man was already the leader of the Great Wei State’s Tee Riders, His Majesty’s beloved.” Xiao En recalled the past, but his expression was a bit strange, not like he was reminiscing in the glory of that day, nor did he hold any grudges, perhaps he was about to die, just a piece of indifference and calmness, “The world of that day was the world of Wei, all the talented people were in the court, but the ones who really picked up this court, apart from the late Imperial Master, were the two pairs of brothers.”
Fan Xian looked at the old man’s demeanor and seemed to be able to hold on, slightly reassured, and softly answered, “One of the pairs, naturally, is you and Zhuang Mo Han.”
“Not bad, that brother of mine is much more outstanding than me.” Sean’s face gradually softened, “And he misses the sentiment more than me, I was imprisoned by Qing for twenty years, he still remembers me, I owe him.”
“Why does no one know you are a pair of brothers.”
“The reason is simple, my reputation is too vicious, I don’t know how many purists I have secretly killed, he is a scholar, naturally he doesn’t like me, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him.” Sean replied very flatly.
Fan Xian gave a slight beat and changed the subject, “Who are the other pair of brothers?”
“It’s War Qingfeng and Bitter Lotus.”
“War Qingfeng? The father of the founding Emperor of Northern Qi, a famous general of that year?” Fan Xian was finally shocked, so it turned out that Bitter Lotus had such a close relationship with the royal family of Northern Qi! No wonder that back then, he would have defended the current Empress Dowager and Emperor with one hand, and the royal family was so respectful of the Bitter Lotus lineage.
“Bitter Lotus is the youngest brother of War Qingfeng, and since he was young, he has aspired to be a bitter monk, practicing the Way of the Celestials and striving to someday be certified into the Divine Temple.” Sean said with a sneer on his face, “The world mostly believes in divine temples, but who has actually seen one since this millennium? It’s just those ascetics preaching everywhere, living more pitifully than beggars.”
“But divine temples really exist.” Fan Xian reminded him.
“Not bad.” Sean closed his eyes tightly, “At that time, the late emperor died, and the young emperor ascended the throne, although this emperor was quite good to us subjects, but somehow, he was unusually afraid of death, and all day long, he thought of practicing some kind of immortality technique.”
Fan Xian said, “At that time, Northern Wei was dominant, and as the emperor, he had nothing to worry about, so he naturally could not help but think about these things.”
Sean continued, “So at that time, Bitter Lotus took the opportunity to enter the palace and persuaded His Majesty to send an envoy to go out to sea in search of the temple, saying that if the immortals from the temple taught His Majesty the Immortal Laws, he would naturally be able to live forever. As soon as His Majesty heard this, there is no reason not to agree ……” he said with a bitter smile, “I am the leader of His Majesty’s beloved Tee Rider, this matter naturally falls on my head without any responsibility.”
“Bitter Lotus is the proposer, and he’s extremely fanatical about the temple, so naturally he won’t stay out of it.” Sean said indifferently, “Collecting the efforts of Wei’s entire nation, I don’t know how long we searched, but we finally found a clue, so Bitter Lotus and I led a team of 1,000 men to the north.”
Although the dying old man spoke blandly, Fan Xian was clear that the process must have been quite complicated at the time. The temple was worshipped by the world, but it was vague and nowhere to be found, and to be able to find an actual clue was an amazing thing in itself.
The old and indifferent voice echoed ceaselessly in the cave, and as the sky and mountains outside the cave grew dimmer and dimmer, Fan Xian listened in silence, asking questions at the right time, and his brain worked furiously, re-drawing an approximate map in his own mind through Sean’s recollections of the route that the procession of worship to the temple had taken that year.
It was as if the time had returned to more than thirty years ago, and the faint breath of the Yellow Mountain outside the cave had changed into a blizzard. In the old man’s recollections, Fan Xian seemed to see an exploring party of thousands of people, struggling forward in the savage and incomparable northern lands amidst the snow and wind. Those people wore leather boots, wrapped in thick leather coats, only two eyes exposed outside, but still could not stop the icy cold wind pouring into their bodies.
At the front of the procession were the two leaders of the procession, Sean, who was in his prime at the time, and the young and devout ascetic Bitter Lotus.
The further north the party traveled, the more difficult it became, the fewer people there were, some froze to death, some fell into the icy valley and disappeared, some were killed by the raptors in the sky that clawed and cracked their heavenly souls, in short, the party became shorter and shorter and the atmosphere became more and more bizarre as the expedition progressed.
The sky and the earth were white with snow, due to staying in this boring and cold environment for too long, gradually some of the people in the team went blind and were mercilessly abandoned by Sean in the middle of the wilderness, and some hardy scavenging wolves were waiting for the death of those blind people in the distance.
Everything happened quietly, even something as gruesome as death.
The party walked for a long time more, finally coming to a large mountain in the far north, with only a narrow path leading in between the mountains, while the snow was built up so thickly that it had long since obscured the color of the mountain itself, appearing to be nothing more than a succession of icebergs.
Only after the party of about a hundred people who remained walked into the big mountain did they realize that the back of the big snowy mountain was still a world covered with ice and snow, and even the animals had become extremely scarce. The group was extremely tenacious in setting up their tents and camping, trying to find traces of the temple here, but many days passed without any discovery.
Winter set in, snow fell, the mountains were closed, the sun was gone, and food ran out.
The strongest survived to the end, in the middle of a never-ending night, Sean and Bitter Lotus sat back to back in their tents, surrounded by barricaded corpses, the fires were not extinguished, the remnants of the team’s tents and the clothes of those who had died gave these two strong men their last glimmer of warmth, a glimmer of hope.
“That’s the Wrath of Heaven.”
In the cave, Sean opened his eyes with some difficulty, the scarlet color in his pupils growing thicker, but his eyes showed endless fear: “The temple knew that the mortals were trying to find them, so the heavens were shaken with anger and descended into boundless darkness.”
Fan Xian glanced at this old man and said softly after a long time, “That is called the Extreme Night.” He reconfirmed the location of the temple in his heart.
Sean naturally didn’t understand what the Extreme Night was, only that memory obviously made him remember it incredibly deeply, only to see him say with a perplexed face, “Bitter Lotus was eating human flesh extremely sweetly and extremely miserly while praying to the heavens extremely reverently, and my heart couldn’t help but despise him a little. Unexpectedly …… perhaps in the end he really moved the immortals in the temple, so the sky …… suddenly brightened.”
Fan Xian couldn’t help but look at Sean, thinking in his heart how these two people were able to survive the months-long polar night back then. Even if there were people to eat meat and tents to burn, I’m afraid that the loneliness and the struggle between the two would drive people crazy.
Sean suddenly smiled and said, “The sky dawned all of a sudden, and at that time, Bitter Lotus and I were both at the end of our lives as well, but steeply found hope, and the strength from nowhere supported us to continue living.”
“And then you found the temple.” Fan Xian picked up the dagger and put it to his side, asking softly, “What was the temple like?”
Many years ago, outside the Great Snow Mountain, two people, thin to the bone, walked out of the tent with great difficulty, their deep-set eyes and waxy complexions, the rotting, swollen gums that showed when they breathed, all revealing one message-that these two people were dying.
The light of the day finally stopped being so stingy to come out only for a while, and some of the animals woke up again from their deep burrows; the two strong men were at the end of their tether, but they were still much fiercer than those beasts, so they got a lot of replenishment and got back on their feet.
That day, they squinted their eyes and looked at the great snowy mountains before them in a daze, but they had no idea where the temple they had searched so hard for actually was.
All that was here was the white blanket of earth so clean.
Suddenly a celestial light struck down from the turquoise blue sky, the light from that part of the Great Snowy Mountain took an extremely odd twist and turn, and very suddenly, a beautiful temple appeared out of nowhere in the mountain.
This magnificent temple was built on the mountain, with black stone walls and long light gray eaves, solemn and inexplicable.
Bitter Lotus gazed at the mountain in a daze, and suddenly fell to the ground in excitement, crying loudly in the direction of the temple’s appearance, incomparably poignant. Sean was dumbfounded in place, and only after a long time, he woke up and sat on his butt in the middle of the snow, half a day without the strength to stand up.
This is the temple.