Ning Cheng stood still while holding onto Yu Qing’s cold body. Although he did speculate that Yu Qing might have fallen in Time Wilderness, he never actually believed it. Yet she died in the ice crystal forest before she could even reach the glacial canyon.
But no matter what he thought, Yu Qing died because of him. He could no longer erase Yu Qing’s shadow from his memory. A persistent and determined woman with pure eyes lacking even a hint of dust.
Maybe she felt that she owed him something, or perhaps Yu Qing really fell in love with Wanderer after entering Time Wilderness, just as she said.
He truly could not understand or even fathom what she had to go through to reach this icy cave alone? Was it the cold accompanying her, or her memories and longing towards Wanderer?
Thinking of Yu Qing’s lonely figure carving the ice walls and his sculpture, Ning Cheng felt tears well up in his eyes for the first time, for a woman he didn’t even know. Maybe it might not have been his place to feel sorry for Yu Qing, but he just couldn’t get rid of the guilt and sadness.
He wanted to stand on top of the starry skies, aimed to become one of the real powerhouses in the universe. But he still had seven pa.s.sions and six desires; he couldn’t look at life or death with an everyday gaze. No matter where he stood, he, Ning Cheng, still had a mortal heart.
A flash of lightning pa.s.sed through his mind, and Ning Cheng seemed to have gained a kind of enlightenment. But this enlightenment flashed by in an instant, something he couldn’t grasp at all.
“Yu Qing, I…..” Ning Cheng lowered his head, and two teardrops fell on Yu Qing’s face. He could not control his own feelings anymore. It had nothing to do with love; rather, it was something that he couldn’t express in words. Was it sentimentality, nostalgia, or reluctance to give up? Or perhaps none of these. Whatever it was, a seed had begun to germinate within him.
A weak light flashed, forcing Ning Cheng to look at Yu Qing in his hands, in shock. After the two teardrops fell on Yu Qing’s face, Yu Qing’s body gradually started to disappear.
A forbidden technique. Ning Cheng suddenly understood. A forbidden technique used by those at the verge of death, and activated when someone touched the deceased’s body. The remnant hidden celestial essence in the body would burn the body into nothingness to let others not move it.
Back when Ning Cheng first saw Yu Qing’s lifeless body, he hadn’t noticed the celestial essence hidden in her body.
In just a few breaths, Yu Qing’s body dissipated, leaving behind only a cyan robe.
Ning Cheng gazed at the cyan robe in his hands, feeling his mind going blank. He didn’t choose to stop Yu Qing from reincarnating, which was her choice. He believed that Yu Qing didn’t want anyone to stop her rebirth.
Before witnessing this moment, he still had a few thoughts running in his heart. Maybe one day he could retrieve Yu Qing’s soul, just like Xun Hanrui who hasn’t woken up yet. If he found Yu Qing’s soul, he could then do everything in his power to help resurrect Yu Qing.
Although those thoughts ran around in his mind, he still let Yu Qing’s body dissipate.
A purple coloured half-moon shaped jade talisman fell into Ning Cheng’s palm. Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness shuddered on touching it, and found a few faint inscriptions on its surface:
“I want to stay here with Wanderer forever; I really don’t want anyone to bother me. But on the chance that someone disturbed my body, I already made some preparations. My body will immediately dissipate into nothingness the moment someone touches it. I don’t blame you; I know it might have been unintentional.”
“If you would like to help, then please help me send this half-moon shaped jade talisman to my mother Shen Mengyan in Culmination Starland’s Yu Clan Corner City. My mother will be grateful for it. If you have any requests, do not hesitate to mention them in Yu Clan Corner City, they will satisfy you. You have this Yu Qing’s promise.”
Ning Cheng gave out a long sigh; Yu Qing must have used her last bit of vitality to restore her looks to that of her prime. She even turned her white hair into black, maybe it was for the faint trace of attachment and perseverance in her heart.
Realising that he let Yi Qing die here and even let Yu Qing dissipate into reincarnation the pain erupting in his heart was something that went beyond words.
Only after a long time did Ning Cheng take out a jade box and carefully placed the jade talisman into it. Then, taking out another jade box, he carefully folded Yu Qing’s cyan robes and put them inside, before sealing each box under layers of restrictions.
Even after doing this, Ning Cheng’s mood still did not recover.
It was not until three days later that Ning Cheng began laying out array formations. He wanted to take this entire ice cave into his True Spirit World and bring it out of the Time Wilderness. He decided to also take away each of these ice walls. They were all now extremely precious things to him. At the same time, he also wanted to seal away this area completely, so that no one would come here in the future.
Unfortunately, his cultivation was not up to the mark; otherwise, he might have just taken away the Time Wilderness.
A few days later, this ice cave quickly rolled upon itself under the effects of Ning Cheng’s array formations, and Ning Cheng dragged it out just like a long ice vein.
Rumbling sounds erupted throughout the ice crystal forest. But Ning Cheng did not bother with it and sent this ice cave along with the ten ice walls into his True Spirit World.
Despite the suppression of cultivation, it had no effect on his Array Dao, just as it had no impact on his powerful corporeal body. Therefore, other things that Celestial Gatherer cultivators would find impossible to accomplish, it was not too difficult for someone like him.
Rumbling sounds continued to spread out. Even after Ning Cheng put away this ice cave, the ice forest continued to rumble.
‘Ka-Ka’ sounds stretched out from under his feet, as if the ground beneath his feet would explode the next moment.
Ning Cheng flew over the ice crystal forest and found the ice crystal forest crumbling apart at a rapid pace. From the looks of it, taking away the ice cave triggered some sort of a chain reaction.
Ning Cheng grew more and more shocked the longer he looked at the collapse. From the looks of it, this ice forest would most likely collapse entirely in a few moments.
He suddenly remembered the Ladder of Life, which was another thing left behind by Yu Qing. If this large-scale collapse swept through the area, there was a good chance that it might end up destroying that ladder. Thinking of this, Ning Cheng quickly left the ice crystal forest and rushed to the location of the glacial canyon that had cracked open back then, the one in front of the transfer array. He wanted to put the Ladder of Life into his True Spirit World using array formations, just as he did with the cave a few moments ago.
However, when Ning Cheng came to the place where he had fallen, the previously cracked open glacial canyon had already disappeared. In front of him, he only saw a transfer array.
Ning Cheng deliberately walked to where the crack supposedly originated and stomped on it with his foot. Although it sounded hollow beneath, it did not give any indication that the ice here had ever cracked apart. Even using his spiritual consciousness, it couldn’t go too deep. The ice and rocks beneath the surface also looked extraordinarily thick and hard.
Ning Cheng felt a little worried that if he forcibly tried to open the ice and rock beneath his feet, it might end up creating an even more ma.s.sive collapse compared to the one that happened in the ice crystal forest. If that happened, the ice steps engraved by him and Yu Qing would truly disappear.
After reuniting and re-separating from Yu Qing, Ning Cheng forced himself not to think about what would happen with Yi Qing in the future. However, after experiencing all these things, especially Yu Qing dissipating right in front of his eyes, Ning Cheng grew even more sentimental. He didn’t want items left by Yu Qing to disappear.
But currently, he could not take away the Ladder of Life. Therefore, he decided to come back in the future to take it away.
The rumbling sounds gradually calmed down, and when Ning Cheng looked back again, he was shocked to find that the ice crystal forest had not completely collapsed. Instead, a broad, inclining pa.s.sage had appeared that went right beneath the ice crystal forest. Moreover, it looked as if carved out of pure snow.
From within, the aura of vicissitudes, as well as the mysterious aura of time radiated outward.
Ning Cheng landed on this sloping ice crystal pa.s.sage and let his gaze wander. The channel appeared pure white up close, even when using his spiritual consciousness it still showed up as white.
Regardless of the danger, Ning Cheng didn’t think much about it and quickly went straight along the inclined channel.
This inclined path looked very long, but unlike other pa.s.sages, the pa.s.sage grew wider the further down one went.
An icy chill seemed to ooze out from both sides of the pa.s.sage, just like the chill from a freezing ocean or a sea, chill that always pressed down onto Ning Cheng.
However, with Ning Cheng’s powerful corporeal body obtained through body forging, he didn’t even need to operate his celestial essence to resist this chill. The icy cold dissipated without a trace the moment it neared his body.
After half an hour, Ning Cheng finally stopped. At the end of this inclined pa.s.saged, he found a huge triangular-shaped ice crystal door blocking the path forward.
Ning Cheng rarely saw triangular-shaped gates, but he saw one today. The door was not only triangular; it also had a different colour for its three corners.
The top corner was grey, the left corner was black, and the right corner was white.
There was a big keyhole in each corner. These three keyholes exuded an intense aura of flowing time, which would make people shiver unconsciously.
“Temple of Time?” Ning Cheng asked himself while looking at the triangular door in front of him. Although shocked by it, he felt sure that this was the entrance to the Temple of Time. There were even three keyholes, grey, black, and white in colour, which gave out the aura of time. If this was not the Temple of Time, then what else could it be?
As if confirming Ning Cheng’s thoughts, the moment he said the words ‘Temple of Time’, three words vaguely appeared at the centre of the triangular gate. That’s right; the words were ‘Temple of Time’.
The entrance to the Temple of Time turned out to be under the ice crystal forest of the Sea of Twilight. Something that even Ning Cheng never thought as possible. He had always thought of the Temple of Time as something like the Perpetual Moon Fort, just another area within the Time Wilderness.
According to the distance he just walked, coupled with the direction in which he walked, along with the appearance of the Temple of Time’s door, Ning Cheng concluded that the real main hall of the Temple of Time should be under the endless ice plains.
Time Wheels were quite a common sight on the icy plains. If the range of one’s spiritual consciousness was too small, or if one couldn’t use spiritual consciousness, one should never even think of entering the ice plains, let alone cracking open the ice plains to find the Temple of Time.
Although he found the Temple of Time, he, unfortunately, only had two keys. Could he enter the Temple of Time by himself? Ning Cheng carefully looked around the door to the Temple of Time and felt sure that it had no restrictions around it. Wouldn’t it mean that one could open the door without the keys? After hesitating for a long while, Ning Cheng decided to use force to test it. What could possibly go wrong? After all, it was just a door made out of ice crystals and didn’t have any array formations to support it. Even if it didn’t work, it wouldn’t cost him anything.
Thinking of this, Ning Cheng brought out the Nirvana Spear, aimed it at the door of the Temple of Time and immediately struck the door with it.