Qū's eyes held a hint of surprise. "This Raishō flower is quite overbearing."
Qing Ling stood in the rain, chuckling softly, his voice carrying through the dim, overcast light.
"The Raishō flower planted in your heart is even more overbearing than this one."
With his long hair falling to his shoulders, half his face buried in the dark gray shadows, Qing Ling's voice echoed eerily in the grim, rainy weather.
Bai Fu couldn't help but stammer, "Your Highness, please don't be like this, you look so frightening."
Qū chuckled, flicked his finger towards the sky, and instantly the heavens blazed with light. The scorching sun dispelled the heavy black clouds, and the deathly aura within the rain dissolved under its radiance.
The continuous drizzle transformed into a sun shower, ushering in the rebirth of all things.
Each drop of rain fell upon the earth, merging into the soil, nourishing it, and infusing it with new life.
Qing Ling turned and walked forward, shedding his footwear to step barefoot into the mud. The rain drenched his clothes at will. With each step, he left a footprint, mud staining his feet, water splashing lightly. The figure in green walked away, leaving Bai Fu staring blankly at his receding back.
Bai Fu looked at the receding green silhouette, his expression bewildered. "Senior, what's wrong with my Highness?"
Qū's expression was solemn. He also watched the figure gradually move away, each step falling in the rain, treading the earth, his being merging with the wind and rain, his body beneath the sun. He walked into the spring breeze, passed through the spring rain, his gaze encompassing heaven and earth. The green robe gradually faded and distanced in the eyes of this immensely powerful cultivator.
His entire being, wind and rain, entered heaven and earth, harmonized with all things, approached the Dao, and thus distanced himself from mortals.
This Spring God truly exceeded his expectations. If he were not to perish, he would surely become a great power in the future, even one who could assist his true self.
Seeing one person walking further and further away and the other standing silently, Bai Fu, with no other recourse, could only chase in Qing Ling's direction.
However, as he looked at the green figure in the distance, his spiritual sense could not reach it. Even when he flew at top speed, he could not shorten the distance between himself and the slowly walking Qing Ling.
Qing Ling's heart was now still and undisturbed, as if he had become a god, or perhaps mere dust. A god hears the sounds of all things; dust accompanies the blooming spring flowers.
His Wood Dao was gradually elevating, not in vertical progression of cultivation, but in horizontal development. He used the Wood Dao to observe heaven and earth and examine all things.
Qing Ling's realm was profoundly mysterious. It was a qualitative leap beyond Taiyi, yet still a qualitative difference from Daluo.
The mud he walked barefoot through, in the wind and rain behind him, left a string of footprints, gradually becoming clearer as they receded.
The wind and rain were as dark as night, yet the plants grew naturally. The clouds in all directions gradually dispersed. The spring rain ceased, the spring breeze lingered, and the warm sun remained.
The clear sky, washed by a wind and rain originating from the sun, was spotless, as blue as a pale sea, with no clouds for ten thousand miles. The heavens were high and vast, thirty-three layers deep.
Within Qing Ling's heart, a pair of feet was outlining a world, the Du Guang Plain, a vast expanse in all directions, the center of the Primordial World's southwest.
His figure passed over mountains, where kings and lords stood on their peaks, watching the barefoot youth with grave expressions. His long hair fluttered, his green robe danced, his form walked the earth yet seemed not to belong to heaven or earth, his Dao realm unfathomable.
This Primordial World was too vast, too full of unknowns, too full of mystery. It was often the unknown that was the most terrifying.
Therefore, the Taiyi experts merely stood on their peaks, intently watching the figure in green, making no move.
It was precisely because the Dao charm emanating from the figure in green was too profound that they could not understand it, nor guess its depth, thus harboring reservations. With reservations, they dared not act.
When one Taiyi did not act, the other Taiyi also felt a sense of decorum and refrained from acting. The more people who did not act ahead, the more reservations the lords of the mountains behind them felt, and the more they dared not act.
A hundred years later, a legend circulated on the Du Guang Plain: the soul of a specter in green robes wandered this wilderness, followed by a blind man. No one knew where he came from or where he was going, and no one had ever seen him make a move, because no one dared to attack him.
Qing Ling walked for three hundred years. Bai Fu chased for a long time, eventually becoming too tired to keep up, and could only follow far behind.
Qū also followed, but he walked with his eyes closed.
That blind man was, of course, him.
Qū observed Qing Ling's state, not disturbing or stopping him, but merely following him, learning step by step.
In his eyes, Qing Ling's every action, for three hundred years, had been in harmony with the Wood Dao.
Every flower, every blade of grass, every tree entered his sight; every grain of sand, every stone, every mountain was trodden beneath his feet.
Qū had never witnessed such enlightenment, so he followed and learned.
Qing Ling's enlightenment led him to shed all his divine abilities and magical powers, focusing solely on the Dao.
Qū also followed suit, closing his eyes. For three hundred years, the world was incredibly dark, and he perceived all the sounds of the world through his ears. The wind howled, birds chirped clearly, beasts roared, mountain streams flowed with waterfalls, the earth moved and trembled. Later, he even heard the breathing of all things, the sounds of hearts, the sounds of spirits, the sounds of bodies. He heard the sounds of sentience and the sounds of insentience.
Every sound and every Dao flowed without rhythm.
For these were the sounds of heaven and earth, the most pure and essential sounds, the genesis of the Sound Dao.
Darkness turned into a riot of colors in Qū's eyes, and ten thousand sounds wove a vibrant world.
He closed his eyes and lost the world, yet gained a world of his own.
Three hundred years later, Qing Ling stopped.
For three hundred years, every day, every moment, he had not paused. He had returned to the very beginning, where the start and end met, forming a circle.
Qing Ling looked back, at Bai Fu and the blind man behind him, and smiled faintly. To have people behind you, protecting you, at all times for three hundred years, was a profound feeling.
The figure in green moved again, walking towards the center of the circle he had drawn with his footprints.
He reached the center of the circle and stopped.
Bai Fu also stopped, and Qū stopped as well.
Qing Ling slowly sat down. Bai Fu, exhausted from chasing for three hundred years, also sat down with a sigh of relief. The blind man sat down with them.
Qing Ling closed his eyes. Bai Fu fell into a deep sleep. Qū opened his eyes.
Behind Qing Ling, a seed was planted. Before Qū, an ancient zither appeared.
The seed was Qing Ling's Dao seed of the mortal world. The Tongtian Jianmu tree from the world of withering and flourishing had disappeared and was condensed into this seed.
The seed dissolved into the soil the moment it touched the earth, buried deep within.
The strings of the ancient zither vibrated, and music erupted with each movement of his fingers.
Qing Ling closed his eyes, and the world was a dark void.
Only a small point of green light remained: a green seed.
"Zheng~"
Qū played the zither, and with each note, the music resonated, harmonizing with heaven and earth.
As one note fell, all things were born!
Sound gave birth to the world, sound gave rise to the Great Dao. The zither's music was no longer just music, but the sound of heaven and earth.
The sound of heaven and earth reverberated, rising to the nine heavens.
The sound stirred the clouds in all directions, drawing them near; the sound arose, bringing tribute from all sides.
Harmonizing with the Dao through the sound of all things, transforming it into the Great Dao of Sound, entering the Dao through the zither, from a minor Dao to a Great Dao.
On the Du Guang Plain, a phoenix cried out in the nine heavens. All things revived, and all spirits bowed.
Amidst a colorful symphony of music, a phoenix spread its wings, its vibrant plumage resplendent as it flew, leading the way. A celestial staircase appeared behind the phoenix's tail.
Tier upon tier, it ascended into the cosmos. In the deep clouds, an eighty-four-thousand-step stairway appeared, where phoenixes danced.