Chapter 712 – Mirage of Kunlun, The Emperor of Light - Part 2

The next morning.

Li Yuan summoned palace maids to attend to the Empress, then quietly left.

He walked to a private study. The bookshelves there had already been restocked with newly acquired volumes.

Most were travelogues from the west, collected from far and wide by Heaven’s Quill.

Heaven’s Quill was the finest intelligence network in the land, its history long and storied. It had been founded by the Li Clan, and its current master was none other than Li Tianshi.

Li Yuan scanned the spines of the books. His gaze paused, then settled on a thin leather-bound volume.

It was stained with blood.

Li Tianshi was no fool. He would never suppress the truth just to make something appear

presentable

for the Emperor’s eyes.

On the contrary, bloodstains only meant the contents were all the more valuable.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

And for it to end up directly in Li Yuan’s hands meant it was truly important.

He opened it.

The leather was taut, the pages full of wrinkles. Blood had soaked through several parts, and the handwriting was scrawled and smeared in many places, as if the entire thing had been dunked in water and left to dry.

A small note was attached beside the volume.

“Found in the belly of a flowerfish by a fishmonger in western Cloud Capital.”

A flowerfish was a large freshwater fish that thrived in cold rivers.

Li Yuan thought to himself,

If it was found in a fish’s stomach, it must have come from upstream.

He remembered how, in the past, snow and ice flowing down from the Deathless Tomb would often carry corpses from upstream to the lower reaches, many of which would settle in the dark, still places downstream, forming ghost domains.

The little Wolfmother who loved watching sunsets had been one of them.

Now intrigued, he began reading the leather scroll.

It was a diary.

The identity of the writer had long been lost to time.

But ever since Li Yuan took control of the Central Plains, he had issued an order. Anyone who could provide firsthand accounts of the Western Extremes, or any information regarding the Divine Mother, would be richly rewarded. But those who dared to make false reports would be punished as traitors.

And the rewards were no small matter. Some were so grand that they even included elevation into the faith, sealed and sanctified.

Naturally, droves of people rushed westward in search of fortune.

This diary’s author, it seemed, was likely one of those westward adventurers.

At first, the entries were simple, routes taken and terrain observed. But as the traveler ventured deeper into the mountains, the path grew treacherous and confusing. Soon, it was clear the writer had become lost.

Even so, he kept writing.

Toward the end, he described spotting a divine tree in the distance, growing high atop a mountain peak.

It looked like a locust tree, but it wasn’t rooted in the earth. Instead, it floated among the clouds, half-shrouded in mist, otherworldly in every sense.

The moment he saw it, the diarist was overcome with excitement. He believed he had discovered the legendary

Land of the Divine Mother

.

He ran toward the tree at breakneck speed, scribbling notes whenever he could spare a moment.

By this point, his handwriting was no longer steady. The characters danced across the page in a frenzy, proof of his exhilaration. Whether it was the myth of the Divine Mother’s Elixir of Immortality or the Tang Emperor’s lavish rewards, both had ignited an unstoppable fervor in his heart.

But then...the entries stopped abruptly and completely.

Clearly, he died on the way to that floating divine tree.

As for how, Li Yuan couldn’t say.

But he

did

have some thoughts about the tree.

Sheng’er’s cultivation focused on the Heaven Soul. When she merged all her souls together in an effort to break through, what remained was a locust tree.

As for why it was floating in the sky, Li Yuan suspected it was an illusion, a mirage.

The logic was simple. He knew exactly how far the Deathless Tomb was from here. If the tree had truly been spotted in that region, there was no way the diary, let alone the fish that swallowed it, could have traveled downstream and ended up here.

Even so, the record had value.

At the very least, the description of the floating tree likely matched the current state of Sheng’er’s remaining Heaven Soul.

Li Yuan examined the account more carefully.

The leaves were a dark, vibrant green. Giant bees, each the size of mandarin ducks, buzzed between the branches.

The roots hovered above the ground, rising and falling like serpents in a sea of clouds. Nestled among the roots were strange sheep-like creatures, resting peacefully. They had four horns and jet-black eyes, their presence exuding a mysterious, sacred aura.

Li Yuan closed his eyes and pondered the description.

To him, it wasn’t

sacred

at all.

It felt...ominous and malevolent.

“So something

has

gone wrong,” he murmured, narrowing his eyes.

But then, a strange unease stirred within him, an emotion he hadn’t felt in years. A whisper from his past life.

Back in the world he came from, there had been a book, the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

And in its Book of the Western Mountains, it described scenes eerily similar to this one.

He could still remember two lines, half-buried in memory:

“In the Mountains of Kunlun, there is a bird, shaped like a bee, the size of a mandarin duck. It is called the Qin Yuan. If it stings a beast, the beast dies. If it stings a tree, the tree withers.”

“There is also a beast shaped like a sheep, with four horns. It is called Tu Lou. It feeds on humans.”

Li Yuan inhaled sharply and rolled up the bloodstained scroll, his eyes turning dark as he stared at the falling snow beyond the door.

That strange feeling in his chest roiled like a tide.

Could this world...somehow be connected to the one I came from?

Just then, a guard burst into the study, dropped to one knee, and said breathlessly, “Urgent report for His Majesty!”

Li Yuan turned calmly. “What’s the emergency?”

The guard knelt respectfully. “Internal strife in the Phantom Camp. The Phantom King is dead. The Wolf God and the northern Saintess are now leading their forces south. Further details will arrive shortly.”

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

A few days passed.

More reports from the Phantom Camp were delivered.

The true identity of the once-mysterious Phantom King was finally revealed.

His name was Huyan Hai, and the Huyan Clan appeared to have originally migrated from the Central Plains to the far north. When exactly, no one could say.

Half a month later, a sealed letter arrived by express courier and was placed in Li Yuan’s hands.

Its contents made everything clear.

Just as Li Yuan had suspected, Huyan Hai was a reincarnator, none other than Yu Lie, the Heavenly Emperor of the ancient Yu Dynasty in his previous life.

He had used a children’s rhyme to gather the other Yu Dynasty reincarnators in the north. And in the five years following Lady Yu’s ascension into the transcendent realm, he had developed a method to break through as well. Just as his lifespan was nearing its end, he broke into the transcendent realm and reversed his aging, his silver hair turning back to black.

The letter then detailed Huyan Hai’s life and exploits.

As for the intentions of those surrendering? Simple. Now that the realm was unified and the tide irreversible, they wished to pledge allegiance to the south in exchange for better cultivation resources.

It was Huyan Hai who had held a grudge against the Tang Emperor. So, they had killed him and returned the stolen gate he had kept in his possession.

Li Yuan handed the letter to Mister Mu and Tuoba Yin for verification.

Both men nodded after reading. “It all checks out.”

Li Yuan exhaled slowly.

Logically speaking, there was nothing left to worry about.

Ever since he unified the land, he had used overwhelming momentum to pressure the Phantom Camp. The outcome had played out just as he expected.

Still, he wasn’t one to get careless.

He immediately ordered that the Phantom Camp envoy come alone with the gate and appear before him in court.

But after sending that order, an odd sense of melancholy stirred within him.

He was the Heavenly Emperor of the Yu Dynasty, after all. A man who had witnessed the golden age of ancient gods with his own eyes...and now he’d died in a mere palace coup? Just like that?