Chapter 1649 — The Number Forty-Two

In the last golden hall of the Golden Ship of Deliverance, Shen Mu reached out and lightly touched that Dao flower. The Dao flower revolved and cut his finger.

"The Dao flower is still here.

.

. The Dao flower is still here. .

.

" Shen Mu murmured, as if he felt no pain at all. "You told me that we would meet again in the Chaos Hall in the future.

What did you mean? You should still be alive, right? Possibly still alive. . . " The sword blade inside the Dao flower turned, giving off a tinkling sword chime, as if responding to him. Shen Fengqing and Taishi entered the golden hall; their gazes fell upon the Dao flower, and Taishi asked doubtfully, "Is this Kai Huang's Dao flower?

" Shen Mu nodded. "I still do not understand exactly what is going on. How could Kai Huang's Dao flower survive the Fourth Young Master of the Miluo Palace's attack? That blow by the Fourth Young Master of the Miluo Palace was aimed at Ling Heavenly Venerable.

Its power was enough to erase Ling completely.

The power of that zither string alone was enough to destroy Kai Huang utterly, leaving nothing behind. Yet this Dao flower was preserved. . .

" He mused, "There should be some power I have never noticed that protected Kai Huang's Dao flower and left him a thread of life.

This person's arts are immense.

. .

Chaos Hall, Chaos Hall. .

. What place is this?

" He was somewhat bewildered.

Shen Fengqing swiftly made a circuit of the treasure hall without finding Kai Huang's "ghost. " His face showed astonishment, and he said distractedly, "Little brother, I clearly saw the old ancestor's ghost. Strange—if it is not here, where could it be?

" "Are you sure it was him? " Shen Mu asked.

"It was definitely him!

" Shen Fengqing said. "I absolutely cannot be mistaken!

That bearing, that presence, and that sword path—it was definitely him!

" Taishi hesitated for a moment and said, "His features were also his. But we could not touch him; we could only pass through his body.

. .

" Shen Mu pondered, pacing back and forth, and murmured, "Why can we not touch him?

Could he be in the Immutable state?

" He thought of Ling Heavenly Venerable's experience.

Back then, when he had rescued Ling Heavenly Venerable and left behind the Miluo Palace Dao patterns, he, Kai Huang, and the others had remained in the Divine Sense Great Luo Heaven to battle the Great Emperor. Ling Heavenly Venerable cast a spell, sending them forty thousand years into the future, while she herself stayed forty thousand years in the past. At that time, there were two Ling Heavenly Venerables—the one in the real-world perspective and the one trapped in the Immutable divine ability of the Heavenly River. Both were in an unobserved state. If anyone's gaze fell upon Ling Heavenly Venerable, she would collapse, and the Ling Heavenly Venerable trapped in the Immutable divine ability of the Heavenly River would become the sole true reality. This is the uniqueness of matter under observation.

In the unobserved state, Ling Heavenly Venerable had two possibilities: one living in the real world, the other dying and being reborn endlessly in the Heavenly River. Only Ling Heavenly Venerable herself could break this state, and at that time she was absorbed in studying the Miluo Palace Dao patterns, waiting for the arrival of Shen Mu's era. She had broken it only once, when she met Kai Huang. Hence, over the length of forty thousand years, Ling Heavenly Venerable had almost never appeared. "Kai Huang may also be in such a state. " Shen Mu paced as he pondered.

"The Kai Huang you saw should have been the Kai Huang of the future, glimpsed unintentionally. A being powerful to an almost inconceivable degree used supreme divine power to send him into the future at the moment the Fourth Young Master's divine power erupted. Moreover, Kai Huang was sent by that inconceivable being into an object that could pierce through the future—that object is the Golden Ship of Deliverance! " His eyes gradually grew bright, his steps and his words quickened, and he suddenly clapped his hands. "This is what it means to board the ghost ship. . .

no! The Golden Ship of Deliverance! People who board the golden ship see ghosts and even feel that the ghosts are speaking to them! These are not real ghosts—Kai Huang was sent by that inconceivable being onto the golden ship of the future!

" He said excitedly, "This golden ship was refined by the Master of the Miluo Palace, so the ship itself is equivalent to an eternal, unchanging substance! It can pass through great kalpas of cosmic destruction!

Thus, in the state of immutable matter, it can appear in the past! Granny Zhu and the others met people from the future on board and thought they were the Master of the Miluo Palace, even saying that the Master of the Miluo Palace guided them in cultivation!

That was not the Master of the Miluo Palace—that was Kai Huang! " The more he spoke, the more excited he grew.

"Kai Huang in a future state!

Because he and we are in different times and spaces, he and we are like the conversation I once had with Cloud Heavenly Venerable above the Heavenly River—we could only dimly see each other! It is the same with Kai Huang! " He grew even more excited, suddenly bursting with primal qi and visualizing runes; in a blink, countless numerological runes appeared, crackling and changing in unpredictable ways!

Shen Fengqing watched his own younger brother, crazed as a demon, continuously altering all kinds of bizarre runes, and could not help but be stunned.

The shifting runes made him dizzy; after watching for a moment, Shen Fengqing nearly vomited and hurriedly turned his gaze away.

"Little Fatty, what is my little brother doing? " he asked curiously. Taishi stared fixedly, extremely excited, his eyes glued to the runes formed by Shen Mu's primal qi, and without lifting his head said, "He is computing! Truly marvelous and boundless! And there is this kind of algorithm.

.

.

Good! " Shen Fengqing was utterly in the dark and humbly asked, "What is he computing? " "Whether his conjecture is feasible! " Taishi was even more excited; he clearly understood Shen Mu's calculations.

His eyeballs spun faster, and clapping his hands in admiration, he said, "Excellent! So this is how it is solved.

. .

You don't understand? Aren't you brothers? I've heard you two share the same brain—but yours doesn't seem to work. .

. " Shen Fengqing's face darkened, and he punched Taishi square in the right eye. Taishi's two eyes both swelled into slits, and he muttered, "Sure enough, they are brothers.

.

. " Shen Mu exhausted all that he knew and calculated madly, even devising new algorithms as he went. He had originally been one of the foremost masters of numerology in the world, perhaps a cut below Lin Xuan, but not by far.

Jingping's numerology had already been developed to an extremely high level by the Jingping Dao School; every time Shen Mu returned, he would go to the Jingping Dao School to learn. Dao Master Lin Xuan could be said to be on the very forefront of numerology, yet whatever he knew, Shen Mu basically knew as well. Furthermore, when Ling Heavenly Venerable had analyzed the Miluo Palace Dao patterns, she had also created a numerological system of her own, and while learning the Miluo Palace Dao patterns from her, Shen Mu had absorbed her numerological system on the side, lest she find him too stupid to teach.

He tried to fuse the Jingping numerological system with Ling Heavenly Venerable's system and create more algorithms. After more than ten days, the entire great hall could no longer contain so many numerological runes.

Shen Mu went outside and continued his mad calculations. After another ten-odd days, Shen Fengqing looked up and saw that the numerological runes evolved and visualized by Shen Mu from his primal qi had filled the sky above the golden ship, forming an immense canopy with no end in sight!