Chapter 1815

Ye Chen narrowed his eyes slightly and muttered, "What is that thing?" He had considered going in for a closer look but then decided against it.

Black holes were not to be trifled with; they were places you wouldn't enter unless absolutely necessary. You might go in and never return.

Zhou Tianyi smiled and turned away, his demeanor as gentle as a spring breeze, his clothes untouched by dust. He had already stepped out of the bamboo grove first. As the son of the Donghuang, he moved like an ordinary person, concealing all traces of his cultivator aura, having returned to a state of pure simplicity.

Ye Chen pulled his gaze from the black hole and glanced at Nanming Yushu. At her current pace, she would need more time to focus her mind. If something went wrong with the Dao principles, she might have to merge with the Dao, and that could take an unpredictable amount of time.

Being considerate, he created a clone to stay behind and keep her company, as he found waiting alone rather dull. Before leaving, he even patted the clone on the shoulder and said, "Make sure to share some risqué jokes. She loves those."

"Not serious at all," Nanming Yushu scolded. If she weren't in her soul form right now, she would have definitely run out and kicked him.

Ye Chen shrugged it off with a shake of his head and flew away casually.

No sooner had he left than his clone rolled up its sleeves and rubbed its hands together, ready to launch into a barrage of stories. With the same mischievous nature as the original, it knew plenty of those kinds of jokes.

However, before it could even start, Nanming Yushu cut it off with a single word: "Get out."

The clone felt awkward, shoved its hands in its pockets, and squatted under a tree, eyes darting around as it pondered how to fulfill the original's instructions.

Meanwhile, Ye Chen had left the ancient city and was heading straight for Nan Chu.

Most people flew with their eyes open, but he was flying with his eyes closed the whole way—who knew if he might crash into a mountain.

Clearly, he was deeply absorbed in comprehending the Sheng Zhan Fa Shen. In the days to come, this technique would be his go-to for battles.

The divine repository of Di Huang was like a treasure trove, with secret arts that were extraordinarily powerful—things like Ba Ti Wai Xiang, Hua Yu Wei Chen, and now the Sheng Zhan Fa Shen.

So focused was he on his comprehension that he lost track of time entirely.

As a result, after flying for three straight days, he was still in Bei Chu. At this rate, it would take centuries to get back.

On the ninth night's darkness, a thunderous boom echoed through the heavens and earth.

He had crashed—and this time for real—smashing into a towering mountain peak, reducing it to rubble.

The impact jolted him awake, and he looked embarrassed as he brushed the dust off himself and stepped out of the debris.

Luckily, that mountain peak had no spirit; if it did, it would have cursed him out: "What did I ever do to you? There's so much space out there, and you had to come barreling straight into me!"

Ye Chen felt like complaining too. Out of all the mountains, why did you have to stand out so much, towering like that? Serves you right for getting hit.

Muttering to himself, he waved his hand to summon a teleportation portal. Flying back to Nan Chu would be insane—unless he'd been kicked in the head by a donkey.

But instead of stepping through the portal, he instinctively turned his head and stared off in one direction, lost in thought.

At the base of the mountain lay a small village—or more accurately, an abandoned one, long since fallen into ruin.

"Is this fate?" Ye Chen said with a laugh, his voice tinged with sorrow, his eyes glistening with tears.

Suddenly, he took a step and appeared right in front of the village.

There stood a stone tablet, weathered and faded by wind and sand, its inscription barely visible: Shan Shi Village.

Though the three characters were blurred, they hit him like a knife, piercing his soul with pain and making his body tremble uncontrollably.

For a long time, he stood there like a statue, motionless before the tablet.

In his deep eyes, tears welled up and overflowed, streaming down his face and seeping into his heart.

Without a word, he finally moved forward, slowly entering the village.

The village wasn't large, made up of stone houses built from rocks, most of them collapsed. Even the stone path underfoot was cracked, with weeds and moss sprouting through the gaps.

He wandered like a visitor, walking and observing along the way.

It must have been a simple, honest community, with grindstones and water jars everywhere, and farming tools like hoes and shovels leaning under the eaves—rough but essential for tilling the land.

The wind swept by, stirring his white hair and clothes.

It also uncovered bones half-buried in the sand—remains that had lain there for who knows how many years, their cause of death unknown, but clearly not from natural causes, left to rot in the open.

He knelt down, his hands trembling as he brushed away layers of dust from the ground, as if searching for something.

The scene was eerie, leaving the Quasi-Emperors of Tianxuan Gate stunned. Who would have thought the mighty Saint Lord of the Heavenly Court would be out in the dead of night, digging in a mortal village?

"Maybe he found some treasure," the Earth Elder stroked his beard and speculated. "Look, he's so moved he's crying."

The other Quasi-Emperors dismissed his guess as nonsense.

They knew Ye Chen well enough—his expression right now was one of deep pain, the kind that cuts to the bone.

But they were puzzled: what connection could this rundown mortal village have to Ye Chen, to make him react like this?

Under their watchful eyes, Ye Chen unearthed two sets of bones from the dust, holding them shakily in his hands.

In the moonlight, large teardrops fell onto the bones—his tears, streaming down his face.

With a wisp of immortal light from his hand, the bones turned to ashes, which he carefully placed into two urns.

Clutching the urns, he made his way to a nearby stone house and gently pushed open the cracked wooden door.

The stone house was dim, with simple furnishings: just a stone table, a few stone chairs, a earthen kang, and a straw mat.

The only wooden piece was a small altar table against the wall, covered in thick dust, holding an incense burner. On the wall hung a faded portrait of a deity, its features unclear, but undoubtedly an immortal figure in the eyes of mortals, worshiped for good weather, bountiful harvests, and family well-being.

The house was overrun with spiderwebs, layer upon layer, with no sign of human life—or even spiders anymore.

Yet, this shabby, dark little stone house drew even more tears from Ye Chen, an endless flow.

He set the two urns on the altar, lit three sticks of incense, and placed them in the burner.

Then, he stepped back and knelt on the ground, his voice choked as he said,

"Dad,

Mom,

Your child is home."

That word—Dad and Mom—was hoarse and weary, soaked in tears.

The sound left the Quasi-Emperors of Tianxuan Gate completely baffled, the plot twist beyond anything they expected.

"Surprised, aren't you?" Donghuang Tai Xin remarked casually.

"Is that really his dad and mom?" the others asked tentatively.

"Absolutely genuine," Donghuang Tai Xin replied, waving her hand to summon a water screen. It displayed scenes from Shan Shi Village, but not the present—from the past.

In the screen, Shan Shi Village nestled by the mountains and rivers, with beautiful scenery and simple folk. Smoke rose from chimneys as people worked the fields, and children played joyfully.

Through the water screen, the Quasi-Emperors could faintly hear the sounds.

They were all ordinary people, dressed in coarse cloth, eating simple meals, yet living happily.

But all that peace shattered one night: the village was raided by bandits, leading to merciless slaughter.

The Quasi-Emperors fell silent, unaware that Ye Chen's past life home had endured such tragedy. They never imagined the undefeated God of War had such ordinary parents.

In the stone house, Ye Chen remained on his knees, sobbing with raw emotion that couldn't be faked.

Indeed, this was his home from his past life. The ashes in the urns were his dad and mom, who had been killed in the bandit attack. The whole village perished, but he had escaped because he was playing in the mountains as a child.

Those memories were what he had seen on the Wang Xiang Terrace.

Though it was his past life, they were still his parents, bound by blood that no force could erase. That's why he could so precisely locate their remains.

This was his true origin, and his parents had been gone for so long.

But he had arrived too late, missing an entire cycle of reincarnation.

As a child, on countless nights, he had curled up in haystacks, crying and calling for his dad and mom, fighting with his frail body to snatch food from wild dogs.

Just as he had once told Haotian Xuan Zhen, his childhood was filled with darkness—people starving to the point of eating their own children. Too many such scenes were etched into his soul.

Having witnessed so much human ugliness, he came to hate the heavens yet pity the world, for there was endless suffering among the common people.

In the dim stone house, he cried like a broken man, the emotions suppressed through one reincarnation finally exploding in this moment.

What did it matter if he was the Saint Lord of the Heavenly Court or the undefeated God of War? He was still just a person, still his parents' child.

Sadly, he could never see them again—only the two urns remained, holding all the dreams of his childhood.

This must be a karmic tie: the cause from his past life, the effect in this one. No matter how vast his powers, he couldn't bring his parents back.

Everything had turned to dust in that past life's Shan Shi Village, buried in the annals of history, forever frozen in time.