After Gu Chengming had laid out in detail everything that had happened inside the Moon Within Dream, the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign fell into a long silence before finally speaking. "This Moon Within Dream is an artifact the Penglai's Sect Head once forged by borrowing a fraction of the authority of the 'Heaven Moon' Dharma-Station."
In other words, this was likewise an artifact on the level of a Dharma-Station — no wonder it could turn illusion into substance and draw people bodily into dreams; ordinary means could never hope to touch it.
Gu Chengming learned something even more surprising from the Sovereign: this "Heaven Moon" Dharma-Station shared a single lineage with the "Moon Within Clouds" Dharma-Station she herself cultivated.
According to the Sovereign, that Penglai's Sect Head had once split the complete "Heaven Moon" Dharma-Station in two, transforming it into the "Moon Within Dream" and "Moon Within Clouds."
To this day, "Moon Within Clouds" still held a firm seat among the upper-tier Dharma-Stations of the Unfettered River, personally overseen by the Sovereign herself.
If merely half a Dharma-Station, split off and given away, could nourish something as formidable as Moon Within Clouds, then working backward, one could well imagine just what tier the complete "Heaven Moon" must have occupied.
Still, there was one thing that kept nagging at Gu Chengming as not quite right.
"Senior..." he said carefully, "the Penglai's Sect Head who originally created the Moon Within Dream — that can't be the same person as the 'Penglai's Sect Head' who governs it now, can it?"
After all, the Sect Head inside the Moon Within Dream had plainly looked like nothing more than an obsession given form, not the genuine master of the Dharma-Station.
"Your guess isn't wrong, young friend." The Sovereign nodded. She explained that the Penglai's Sect Head who had originally attained the Heaven Moon Dharma-Station and created the Moon Within Dream had been named the "Flower-Fixing Time-Wielding Sovereign" — roughly a contemporary of her own era.
"As for the one there now..." The Sovereign's brow furrowed slightly. "I cannot see her true nature clearly."
Something stirred in Gu Chengming. He thought back to Arnold, back in the Sect Head's Hall, and the name that had risen to her lips but somehow refused to come out.
— It seemed as though the Sect Head's true name had been forcibly erased.
No — not just her true name.
Turning the matter over carefully, Gu Chengming realized he'd never once heard even her Dao title, from beginning to end.
An ordinary cultivator, no matter how carefully they guarded their true name, would still keep some Dao title to go by in the outside world. But this Penglai's Sect Head had wiped away even that, as though she'd never once left behind any name in this world that could be used to identify her at all.
The sense that something was wrong only deepened in Gu Chengming.
Just what reason could she have had for erasing both her true name and her Dao title so thoroughly?
He couldn't untangle the puzzle for the moment and had no choice but to set it aside, buried for now.
Right after the wager between Gu Chengming and that Penglai's Sect Head began, the Moon Within Dream hanging high overhead finally began to exert its influence, quietly and without a trace.
It began trying to make Gu Chengming's friends and loved ones "willingly" step into Penglai.
Perhaps thanks to the constraints of that earlier wager, the Moon Within Dream actually kept to the rules this time — it didn't touch any of the innocent, ordinary disciples of the Wenjian Sect, instead directing all its temptation at the handful of people Gu Chengming truly held dear.
But the Moon Within Dream had likely miscalculated.
The Dao Hearts of these seasoned elders were hardly so easily shaken.
Mo Wu, Supreme Elder who had lived through the great Tribulation, had a Dao Heart already tempered hard as bedrock. No matter how many old regrets from the Tribulation Grounds the Moon Within Dream laid before her, she gave them only a single indifferent glance and brushed the illusory temptation away entirely.
Needless to say, the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign had come with the resolve to bury Penglai with her own hands. But of everyone, the one who left the Penglai's Sect Head most astonished was none other than Gu Chengming's master, Ren Wencai.
This Grand Elder of the Huiyuan Gate had a Dao Heart so unshakably firm it was practically impervious to any persuasion at all.
The Moon Within Dream first tried tempting him with a handful of regrets from his own life, but Ren Wencai wouldn't even engage — instead he tore the illusory scene apart with a string of silent curses.
When the Moon Within Dream switched tactics and tried to stir his longing for "carefree bliss," the old elder simply sat down cross-legged without hesitation, formed a hand seal to guard his Dao Heart, and began murmuring an incantation, leaving not the slightest room for the temptation to take hold.
Ren Wencai's regret concerned a few fellow Daoists he had once failed to protect; even when their illusions urged him to join them in Penglai's bliss, he remained unmoved.
Later, Ren Wencai even began trying to turn the tables and talk those illusory fellow Daoists into rebellion — he moved them so much that they declared they'd "no longer submit to this Moon Within Dream's control" and wanted "true freedom" again, forcing the Moon Within Dream to personally dissolve the phantoms itself.
Even the Penglai's Sect Head, composed as she usually was, couldn't help privately marveling at the sight of Ren Wencai's utter imperviousness — that the world truly held someone with a Dao Heart so unshakable.
But another person's situation looked far less reassuring.
That person was Elder Little Yu. What she feared was the same old worry — that she'd gradually fall behind Gu Chengming's pace.
The cultivation path stretched on without end, and Little Gu was moving so fast along it.
So fast that she often felt the illusion of walking beside him one moment, only to blink and find he'd already strode far ahead, leaving her behind. From the disciple she'd once needed to shield and protect under the guise of a senior, to the prodigy that even venerable Sovereigns now scrambled to keep pace with — Little Gu had come so far, so fast, that she, his Dao companion, often found herself gripped by the fear of being left behind.
Could she really keep up with him?
The enemies Little Gu faced kept growing more and more formidable.
Once they'd been nothing more than common demonic beasts; now they were Sovereigns of tremendous power, capable of stirring up calamities that shook Heaven and Earth. She lived in constant dread that Little Gu might one day be unable to withstand some overwhelming danger — and equally afraid that one day she'd lose sight of even his retreating back as he walked further and further away.
Every time she watched Little Gu wear himself thin over matters of world-shaking weight, throwing himself into danger after danger, she hated that she couldn't help even a little — that she could only stand by and worry, without even the standing to share his burdens.
Her own meager cultivation counted for almost nothing against the world Little Gu now had to face.
And yet what she truly wanted had never been much.
Just to spend this one life together with Little Gu, safe and unhurried, the two of them.
No need to worry about calamities of Heaven and Earth, no need to concern herself with world-shaking Sovereigns — just to find some quiet corner of the world, where he practiced his sword and she read her storybooks, where they went out walking together when they were free, and she cooked him a dish or two when hunger struck...
"If you enter this Moon Within Dream together with Gu Chengming, the two of you will never again be troubled by the chaos of this world. No calamity, no Sovereigns, none of the dangers that could cost him his life."
"You can go on together, exactly as you've longed for — safe, unhurried, for as long as you like."
The instant the words faded, warm scene after warm scene surged into Yu Wenqiu's mind like a tide.
A small courtyard, its walls thick with climbing vines, a couplet Little Gu had written for her hanging on the doorposts. An old osmanthus tree stood in the yard, scattering golden petals across the ground every Mid-Autumn.
She saw herself lounging idly in a hammock beneath the veranda, reading her storybooks, while Little Gu practiced his sword on the open ground not far off, blade-light shifting under the sun. When he tired, he'd come over and, without a thought, smooth back the strands the wind had tousled from her hair. She saw herself tying on an apron, flustered at the stove as she fried fish cakes, oil spattering and stinging her fingers until she flinched back — Little Gu watching helplessly, laughing, yet still reaching out to shield her from the spitting oil.
She saw the two of them curled up together over a pot of warmed osmanthus wine, trading idle, unhurried chatter, and when the mood struck, she'd lean into his arms and nuzzle her head against him...
All she had to do was nod, and she'd never again have to fear that vanishing silhouette, never again have to worry over deadly danger.
She and Little Gu could simply spend this whole life, safe and sound...
"Elder Little Yu." A voice called her back just then.
Gu Chengming could clearly see that Elder Little Yu was wavering, and he understood her worry. "Do you remember what I told you, that day I broke through?"
Yu Wenqiu stared at him, dazed.
"I said I'd save the view along the road to Sovereignhood — to watch it together with you."
"What I want was never some false Penglai holding only the two of us. What I want is to walk this real, true world side by side with you. Even if the road ahead holds calamity, danger, and endless trouble — that's still what our life together truly is."
"I want to give you real safety, real peace..."
"And whatever 'peace and safety' waits inside that Penglai is nothing but a grand dream."
Yu Wenqiu gazed at the face so close before her, at Gu Chengming, and suddenly her tears broke into laughter.
"What were you even thinking?! Do you take this elder for a fool? I don't want any part of that fake Penglai."
"Who'd want to hide away in there, playing the ignorant fool." She shot him a glare. "I still want to see you become a Sovereign with my own eyes. You said you'd save the view along that road for me — don't you dare go back on your word."
Watching her vivid, lively expression return, Gu Chengming felt something in him ease.
Meanwhile, within the Moon Within Dream, the Penglai's Sect Head seated high on her throne looked down at the tender scene unfolding beneath the moonlight, and said nothing for a long moment.
She had seen it all clearly enough, of course.
The woman surnamed Yu had never once truly considered joining Penglai, from beginning to end.
Even in that moment when she'd appeared on the verge of wavering, her Dao Heart hadn't slipped in the slightest.
— If anything, she'd proven every bit as impervious as that unshakable Ren Wencai.
This made the Penglai's Sect Head's brow furrow.
If the woman had never intended to enter Penglai in the first place, why had she put on such a display of wavering and sinking under temptation, forcing the Moon Within Dream to waste so much effort guiding her spirit for nothing?
She puzzled over it without finding an answer, her gaze settling on the two figures embracing beneath the moon — until, as if suddenly realizing something, she raised a hand and smacked her own forehead with a loud crack.
— Ah. So this was what she'd been waiting for.
The woman surnamed Yu had never truly wavered at all — she'd known exactly what she was doing and played dumb, deliberately putting on a pitiful display of teetering resolve, leading the Moon Within Dream on step by step to spin its illusion out to the end, all so she could hand young friend Gu a perfectly legitimate excuse to untangle his own worries and openly declare his true feelings before an audience.
So her mighty calamity of Heaven and Earth had, in the end, become nothing more than a convenient stage for some couple to deepen their bond?
Sure enough, held in Gu Chengming's arms, Yu Wenqiu's lips curved into a smile.
Just as planned. ✓
Elder Little Yu privately congratulated herself on a job well done, thoroughly pleased.
Hmph — normally she was overshadowed by that Sovereign senior in the competition for Little Gu, humiliated by that vixen from the Harmonious Joy Sect, and constantly frustrated at being unable to help him. Now she'd finally caught herself a golden chance to hold her head high.
Her worry about falling behind Little Gu's pace was genuine enough — but using that very worry to feign wavering for the Moon Within Dream's benefit, coaxing him into untangling that knot in her heart, had been calculated all along.
— This way, she got Little Gu to speak aloud, in his own voice, the tender words he'd kept buried in his heart, soothing her own long-anxious mind; and at the same time, she got to flaunt this one-of-a-kind display of affection right in front of that Sovereign senior who always loved competing with her for him.
Two birds with one stone, as it were — a win on every front.
Now that her goal was achieved — Little Gu had declared his heart openly and reaffirmed his promise to watch the road's scenery together with her — Yu Wenqiu felt all the pent-up frustration of these past days dissolve away completely, leaving her thoroughly at ease.
As for the "peace and safety" waiting inside that Penglai...
Yu Wenqiu might be lazy and fond of slacking off, and her nerve wasn't exactly great — but her head was perfectly clear.
A haven built on nothingness, however stable it might seem, was somewhere she'd never set foot in.
The peace and safety she wanted only counted if it was the kind she could hold in her own arms — with Little Gu, flesh and blood, right there beside her.
With that thought, Elder Little Yu nestled a little closer into Gu Chengming's arms, hiding every trace of her satisfaction beneath the guise of tearful vulnerability — leaving only the tips of her ears, flushed a deep red, to give her away.
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