Chapter 1613: The Number Forty-Two
On the Ferry of Salvation's final golden hall, Qin Mu reached out and gently touched that flower of the Dao.
The flower of the Dao spun, cutting his finger.
"The flower of the Dao is still here, the flower of the Dao is still here..."
Qin Mu murmured, as if feeling no pain at all: "You told me we'd meet again at the Chaos Hall—what did you mean by that? You should still be alive, right? There's a chance you're still alive..."
The sword blade within the flower of the Dao spun, emitting a tinkling sword cry, as if responding to him.
Qin Fengqing and Taishi entered the golden hall, their gazes landing on the flower of the Dao. Taishi asked, puzzled: "Is this Kaihuang's flower of the Dao?"
Qin Mu nodded and said, "I still don't fully understand what's going on. Why was Kaihuang's flower of the Dao able to survive the attack of the Fourth Young Master of Miluo Palace? That strike from the Fourth Young Master was aimed at Ling Tianzun. Its power was enough to completely erase Ling. The power of that zither string was enough to utterly destroy Kaihuang, leaving nothing behind. Yet this flower of the Dao was preserved..."
He mused, "There must be a power I haven't detected, guarding Kaihuang's flower of the Dao, leaving him a thread of hope. This person's divine abilities are vast and unfathomable... Chaos Hall, Chaos Hall... What place is that?"
He seemed somewhat lost.
Qin Fengqing swiftly circled the hall once but found no trace of Kaihuang's "ghost." His expression was strange, and he said dejectedly, "Little brother, I clearly saw the old ancestor's ghost. Strange—if it's not here, then where is it?"
"Are you sure it was him?" Qin Mu asked.
"Definitely him!"
Qin Fengqing said, "I could never mistake him! That temperament, that bearing, and that sword Dao—it was absolutely him!"
Taishi hesitated for a moment, then said, "His appearance was also him. But we couldn't touch him; we could only pass right through his body..."
Qin Mu paced back and forth, muttering, "Why can't we touch him? Could it be that he's in an immutable state?"
He thought of Ling Tianzun's ordeal.
Back when he had rescued Ling Tianzun, leaving behind the Dao patterns of Miluo Palace, he and Kaihuang and the others had remained in the Divine Sense Great Luo Heaven to fight the Great Emperor, while Ling Tianzun cast her arts to send them forty thousand years into the future, while she herself remained forty thousand years in the past.
And at that time, there had been two Ling Tianzuns—one in the real world, and one trapped within the immutable divine ability of the Heavenly River.
Both Ling Tianzuns existed in a state of non-observation.
If anyone's gaze fell upon Ling Tianzun, she would collapse, and the Ling Tianzun trapped in the Heavenly River's immutable divine ability would become the sole reality.
This was the uniqueness of matter under observation.
But in a non-observed state, Ling Tianzun would have two possibilities—one living in the real world, and one endlessly dying and reviving within the Heavenly River.
Only Ling Tianzun herself could break this state, and at that time she had buried herself in studying the Dao patterns of Miluo Palace, waiting for the arrival of Qin Mu's era.
She had only broken the state once, when she met Kaihuang.
Thus, over the course of forty thousand years, Ling Tianzun had barely appeared at all.
"Kaihuang might also be in such a state."
Qin Mu paced, thinking: "The Kaihuang you saw should be a Kaihuang from the future, glimpsed inadvertently. A being of almost inconceivable power used supreme divine ability to send him into the future when the Fourth Young Master's divine ability erupted. Moreover, Kaihuang was sent by that inconceivable being into an object that could pierce through time—and that object is the Ferry of Salvation!"
His eyes gradually brightened, his steps quickened, and his speech grew faster. He suddenly clapped his hands and said, "This is what it means to board the ghost ship... bah! The Ferry of Salvation! People who board the ferry see ghosts and feel as though the ghosts are speaking to them! These aren't real ghosts—it's Kaihuang, sent by that inconceivable being onto the ferry of the future!"
He said excitedly, "This golden ship was refined by the master of Miluo Palace. The ship itself is equivalent to an eternally unchanging substance! It can pass through cosmic cataclysms one after another! Therefore, in an immutable state of matter, it can appear in the past! Granny Si and the others encountered people from the future on the ship and thought they were the master of Miluo Palace, saying the master guided their cultivation! That wasn't the master of Miluo Palace—it was Kaihuang!"
The more he spoke, the more excited he became: "Kaihuang in a future state! Because he exists in a different time and space from us, our interaction with him is like my conversation with Yun Tianzun on the Heavenly River back then—we could only see each other hazily! It's the same with Kaihuang!"
He grew even more excited. Suddenly he released his primordial energy, visualizing runes, and in an instant countless mathematical runes appeared, crackling and shifting unpredictably!
Qin Fengqing watched his twin brother go mad, constantly changing all sorts of bizarre runes, and was dumbfounded.
The shifting of these runes made him dizzy. After watching for a moment, Qin Fengqing nearly vomited and quickly averted his gaze.
"Little fatty, what is little brother doing?" he asked curiously.
Taishi stared without blinking, extremely excited, his eyes fixed on the runes formed by Qin Mu's primordial energy. Without raising his head, he said, "He's calculating! Truly wondrous and profound! And this method of calculation... excellent!"
Qin Fengqing was completely lost and humbly asked, "What is he calculating?"
"Whether his conjecture is feasible!"
Taishi grew even more excited, clearly understanding Qin Mu's computations. His eyeballs spun at incredible speed, and he clapped his hands in admiration: "Wonderful! So that's the solution... You don't understand? Aren't you two blood brothers? I heard you two share the same brain—seems like your brain isn't quite up to par..."
Qin Fengqing's face darkened, and he threw a punch into Taishi's right eye.
Both of Taishi's eyes swelled into slits, and he muttered, "They really are blood brothers..."
Qin Mu exhausted everything he had learned, calculating madly, even developing new algorithms during the process. He was originally one of the highest masters of mathematics in the world, perhaps a notch below Lin Xuan, but not far off.
The mathematics of Yankang had already been pushed to an extremely high level by the Yankang Dao Sect. Every time Qin Mu returned, he would go to the Yankang Dao Sect to study.
Dao Master Lin Xuan could be said to be at the forefront of mathematics, but whatever he knew, Qin Mu basically knew as well.
Moreover, Ling Tianzun had also created her own mathematical system when she analyzed the Dao patterns of Miluo Palace. When Qin Mu learned the Dao patterns of Miluo Palace from her, he also absorbed her mathematical system along the way, lest Ling Tianzun find him too dull to bother teaching.
Qin Mu attempted to fuse the Yankang mathematical system with Ling Tianzun's mathematical system, creating even more algorithms. After more than ten days, the entire hall could no longer contain so many mathematical runes.
Qin Mu went outside and continued his mad calculations.
After another ten-plus days, Qin Fengqing looked up and saw that the mathematical runes Qin Mu had evolved and visualized with his primordial energy had already covered the sky of the golden ship, forming a vast canopy—one glance and there was no end in sight!
By now, even Taishi could no longer understand Qin Mu's calculations. The little fatty sat on the ground like a round egg with a head perched on top, hands cupping his cheeks, staring blankly at a single equation.
After a while, he suddenly jumped up, like a big ball carrying a small ball leaping into the air, and said joyfully, "I understand now!"
But after landing, he became dejected again and said hesitantly to Qin Fengqing, "I think I calculated wrong..."
Qin Mu was still calculating madly, but as time passed, his pace of solving slowed. His expression grew grave, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
Sweat flowed like a spring, quickly soaking his clothes.
Qin Fengqing paced anxiously, muttering, "Are you done yet? Have you figured it out... We've reached the Southern Heaven!"
He hurried to the bow and leaned down to look. He saw the magnificent main continent of the Southern Heaven and countless splendid star domains appearing beneath the golden ship.
The Ferry of Salvation sailed through the void of the Southern Heaven like a ghost, gliding silently past.
Qin Fengqing, with twin horns on his head, looked down.
His appearance was identical to a young Qin Mu, as if stamped from the same mold, his face carrying a hint of the youthful innocence unique to Qin Mu in his early years.
The only difference was the twin horns atop his head—the horns of the Earth Lord.
Qin Fengqing kept looking around, and suddenly his heart trembled. He saw a heavenly realm twist, transforming into a colossal wheel.
This distortion was terrifying beyond measure—it was the use of boundless magical power to twist the space of an entire heavenly realm, even twisting its star domains into a ring!
Within that heavenly realm's star domain was a galaxy, countless suns and planets, all forcibly twisted into a ring.
In the world today, only a handful of people possessed such formidable magical power!
Aside from accomplished Daoists like Heavenly Emperor Hao, Taichu, Yun Tianzun, and the Goddess of the Return to Ruins, perhaps only Ancestral God King, who controlled the body of the Heavenly Duke, and Fire Tianzun could accomplish this!
"I see Fire Tianzun!"
Qin Fengqing grew anxious. He didn't dare look directly at Fire Tianzun, lest he be detected, and whispered, "Has little brother still not calculated it? So slow!"
Splash!
The Nether Capital's Heavenly Gate appeared, and the Nether Sea surged out from the gate. The Nether Emperor sat on the threshold, mocking Fire Tianzun, and then was blown apart by a single finger from Fire Tianzun.
"That's Little Yinzi? Fire Tianzun's divine ability is strong, but it seems he can't kill him."
During his time in the Supreme Void, Qin Fengqing had fought the Nether Emperor more than once. At first their strength had been similar, but later Qin Fengqing devoured the divine souls of the gods and demons who died in the Heavenly Court battle, and his strength gradually surpassed the Nether Emperor's. But the Nether Emperor had many tricks, especially his reincarnation divine ability, which was bizarre and strange—he always managed to escape death.
Thus, Qin Fengqing knew the Nether Emperor's methods very well.
Within the Reincarnation Heavenly Gate, the Nether Emperor revived once more, extremely excited, and said to Fire Tianzun: "I know you've always looked down on me. How could the esteemed Fire Tianzun possibly think highly of a despicable wretch like me? But what you don't know is that your weakness has long been in my grasp!"
He stood within the Reincarnation Heavenly Gate, full of vigor: "Fire Tianzun, killing you would take me no effort at all!"
Qin Fengqing clenched his fists, about to study the Nether Emperor's path of reincarnation, when suddenly a voice came from beside him: "The Nether Emperor is going to die. Heavenly Emperor Hao can't tolerate the Great Sun Star Lord, so how could he tolerate the Nether Emperor, who knows even more of his unspeakable secrets?"
Qin Fengqing quickly turned his head and saw Qin Mu had somehow arrived behind him.
He hurriedly looked behind Qin Mu and said rapidly, "Little brother, have you calculated it?"
He only saw a sky full of runes, all sorts of mathematics, but he couldn't understand them, nor did he know whether Qin Mu had reached a result.
Now, only Taishi remained sitting there, still cupping his chin with both hands, staring lifelessly at an equation.
Qin Mu looked somewhat weary, nodded, and said, "I've calculated it. It's feasible. I also calculated which year Kaihuang will appear in the future."
He gently flicked his finger, and a rune flew over.
The rune transformed, taking the form of the characters "forty-two."
"Forty-two years from now."
Qin Mu revealed a smile, his expression somewhat haggard: "He will appear on this Ferry of Salvation."
—The Qidian seventeenth anniversary celebration has ended. Zhai Zhu returned and immediately started writing; he hasn't eaten dinner yet. Starving to death. Asking for monthly tickets. Going to eat now, will come back to see how many monthly tickets have increased.