The undersea garden was not a place filled with water, but a vast dimensional bubble where the air felt incredibly fresh, carrying the scent of damp earth and flower petals untouched by mortal civilization. The sky above this garden was a layer of crystal-clear seawater, where the sunlight from the surface refracted into dancing rainbow colors over an expanse of jade grass.

  Zhi Xuan landed with the softness of a feather. His white robe no longer emitted a blinding radiance, but a faint glow that harmonized with the natural energy around him. He stood in the middle of a path made of crystal pebbles, flanked by trees whose branches bowed under the weight of energy fruits that had remained unpicked for thousands of years.

  "This place..." Zhi Xuan whispered, his sapphire-blue eyes scanning the landscape with scrutiny. "This is no longer part of the ruins. This was someone's private residence in the past."

  Ruo Xianxue appeared beside him, her spiritual silhouette appearing denser in this place filled with pure essence. Her double-pupiled eyes stared toward the statues situated on each side. Her dark robes seemed to trail beneath her even as she levitated.

  "Hmm," Ruo Xianxue murmured, furrowing her brow as she searched her memories. "I don't recall this. What are these statues?"

  Zhi Xuan stepped closer to one of the statues made of white star-stone. Its surface was so smooth it looked like real skin frozen in time. The statue depicted a woman wearing a long silk robe, her hand holding a peach blossom branch, her face looking up at the water-sky with an expression of eternal longing.

  "This statue has no clear face," Zhi Xuan noted, his fingers moving over the stone surface, feeling the remnants of the Laws still pulsing within. "Yet, it radiates an intent very similar to the painting in the corridor earlier. A quiet sadness."

  He paused for a moment, touching his finger to the statue's forehead. There, he received a vision of a quiet green valley, where a simple house stood as a shelter for a small family. From the house, the door opened and a small, innocent boy stepped out. He beamed, looking at the two faces before him—two robed men he recognized as his father’s friends.

  "Uncles, is father home yet?" the little boy chirped cheerfully, his round eyes sparkling with hope. "Where is father, Uncles?"

  From inside, a woman emerged with a bright smile, thinking today was the day of her husband's return as she had just finished preparing a delicious meal. However, her face froze when she saw her husband’s robe, folded and torn, resting in the hands of one of the men. The robe remained, but the one who wore it was gone.

  The woman dropped the wooden plate in her hand, letting the contents scatter across the dirt floor, but her eyes were fixed only on the torn fabric that now felt like the heaviest object in the world. The smile that was once bright withered like a petal struck by a storm, leaving a void that pulled her entire soul into a vortex of grief.

  The vision faded like smoke blown by the ocean wind, leaving Zhi Xuan in the suffocating silence of the garden. The vibrations of grief from the past seeped into his marrow, making his heavenly practitioner body tremble slightly. He withdrew his hand from the statue's forehead, his breath feeling heavy as if the air in the garden had suddenly turned into an unbearable burden of emotion.

  "A child who believed his father would return," Zhi Xuan said bitterly. He remembered hundreds of years ago when he slaughtered the Mo family, leaving behind Mo Chen, a small boy who had lost his father. "Mo Chen, have you grown up now and sought me out for revenge?"

  A haunting silence enveloped the garden, leaving only the soft rustle of spiritual wind moving the jade leaves. Zhi Xuan lowered his head; shadows of the past in the Southern Region spun within his sea of consciousness. Mo Chen, the boy he had allowed to live amidst the blood of his own clan, was now a small thorn pricking the conscience of his white raga. In this heavenly body, karma was no longer something he could simply pile up; it was a real and heavy burden.

  Ruo Xianxue gazed at Zhi Xuan with an unreadable, cold expression. "Regret is poison for a practitioner, Zhi Xuan. The path of cultivation is built upon piles of bones, be they the bones of your enemies or the bones of the innocent. If you allow your conscience to waver in a place filled with these emotional remnants, you will only be trapped in a deadly illusion."

  Zhi Xuan looked up, his sapphire eyes flashing with resolve behind the mist of melancholy. "This isn't regret, Great Saint. This is an acknowledgment. This white body carries the understanding of the Dao, and the Dao cannot stand tall upon falsehoods. If I slaughtered them for my devil path, then let that be part of my history. But seeing this vision... I realize that for every law we pluck, there is a price paid by the universe."

  "I do not regret killing; I was simply once a child who missed his parents," Zhi Xuan said, remembering how he still did not know who his parents were even now. "Your Highness has now entered closed-door cultivation. So, let me continue this journey to find out who my parents are, and the mystery behind that eclipse baby basket—its connection to the Ancient Heaven race."

  Zhi Xuan turned his back on the star-stone statue that seemed to still mourn the husband's torn cloth. He merged back into the shadows, moving deeper into the ruins. He moved like a clump of clouds blown by a strong wind, navigating the garden's corridors which were now adorned with jade bridges spanning across rivers of essence.

  The garden was vast, almost like a small city. He stopped at one of the pavilion courtyards, looking up to see statues of goddesses that appeared too painful for the eyes to behold. The statues were depicted in full bloom like flowers without petals, completely without a single thread of carved silk, causing Zhi Xuan to turn his face away.

  The statues of the goddesses, carved without a single thread, were not forms of mortal lust, but a manifestation of the most extreme natural honesty—a depiction of beings returning to their origins before knowing the dust of the world. However, to Zhi Xuan, the sight felt piercing; not out of shame, but because the purity radiated by the carvings was too heavy for his visual senses to bear.

  "Beauty that is too pure becomes a form of destruction," Zhi Xuan whispered, his eyes fixed on the pavilion floor adorned with heavenly petals. "They didn't just shed their clothes; they shed every form of self-protection before the Heavens."

  "These goddesses were originally from the Crescent Moon Clan," Ruo Xianxue said, levitating closer to the statues. "They possessed a kind of Dao silk; it is something where after their petals bloom, they will close again like a sacred night flower. You could say they return to a state of purity even after they have bloomed."

  Zhi Xuan was stunned for a moment hearing Ruo Xianxue's explanation. The concept of cyclical purity, where blooming does not mean the loss of innocence, resonated strangely with the Law of Reincarnation he was cultivating. He now understood why his heavenly body felt oppressed; it wasn't mortal shame, but a clash between his still-unrefined energy and the purity radiated by the Crescent Moon Clan statues.

  "The Crescent Moon Clan... those who worship the moon as the womb of all life," Zhi Xuan murmured. He dared to look at one of the statues, not at the beauty of the body, but at the flow of energy carved into the star-stone surface.

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  He realized that every muscle line and curve of the statue was actually the lines of a Heavenly Formation. If one could map out every statue's position in this garden, they wouldn't be looking at a collection of art, but rather reading a Holy Scripture carved upon the silence.

  "This treasure is priceless to those who weave the Moon," Zhi Xuan muttered. He turned his gaze away and merged back into the shadows, bolting further into the Secret Realm.

  He reappeared in a deep valley. The surroundings were strange, with lush ancient trees that appeared to have fallen from the sky and were now planted around the valley. It was as if the valley had become the final resting place for giant trees originating from a higher realm.

  The trunks of these trees, each as thick as an ancient clan's tower, did not grow from the ground but were impaled at inverted or tilted angles, as if they were green spears thrown by the Gods from the vault of the Nine Heavens. The roots protruding into the air still coiled around chunks of star-stone that had fallen with them, emitting a dim cyan glow.

  There, he saw a small hollow that radiated a scent of death so thick. "The Underworld River?" Zhi Xuan hissed.

  "The Underworld River is where all life ends," Zhi Xuan murmured, flicking his robe as he appeared atop one of the trees. "Yet, the statement from the barbarian tribe back then was that the Underworld was only in Huang Tu. How can... the Underworld River be here?"

  The gurgling of the river's water did not produce a soothing sound, but a faint rattle like millions of whispering souls wailing in silence. The liquid flowing within was neither clear nor blue, but pitch black with a silvery glow that flowed slowly, carrying fragments of memories rotted by time. The cold it radiated was not the cold of ice, but the cold of non-existence—a void capable of freezing even the fire of life.

  "The Underworld River—Jiu Quan—flows beneath the roots of the Nine Heavens," Ruo Xianxue said, her double pupils glowing. "If a place has fallen fragments of the Guanghan Palace, it is not impossible for the veins of this Eternal River to be displaced and seep into here."

  Zhi Xuan jumped down from the ancient tree branch, landing on the edge of the hollow at a safe distance. He crouched, observing how the black water did not reflect his face, but instead showed the shadow of his black raga meditating in the depths of a distant ocean trench.

  "His Majesty and I... this river seems to connect us," Zhi Xuan thought. He felt a synchronized heartbeat between his self in this garden and his self in the eternal darkness. "Jiu-Quan, the nine springs that drown eternity."

  Suddenly, from the surface of the calm river, an object emerged slowly. Initially, it was just the tip of weathered wood, but over time, a small boat without a rower appeared. The boat was made of black wood, and in the center sat a lantern whose flame was a pale white, un-flickering despite the pressure of the secret realm.

  "The Boat of the Death Realm," Zhi Xuan murmured, rising to stand tall, staring sharply at the boat. "This is the vessel used to cross the river of death, yet it's as if a delicate hand pushed it here. No, wait—that is not the Boat of the Death Realm."

  "This scent... it is the scent of silk and weaving needles," Zhi Xuan continued. He turned and shook his head slowly, intending to move away from the hollow. "Did someone weave this boat and release it?"

  "Big Brother Zhi Xuan," a voice tinkled like a small bell.

  Zhi Xuan’s footsteps stopped instantly, as if time around the Underworld River had frozen in a single pulse. The voice did not come from the front or back, but crawled smoothly from within the thick black water, piercing his spiritual senses with a strange warmth.

  He turned his body slowly. Atop the black wooden boat that had now pulled ashore, there was no longer just a pale white lantern. A little girl with her hair tied in two buns, wearing a pink silk gown very similar to a little girl Zhi Xuan knew, sat there holding a silver weaving needle that emitted a lunar glow.

  "Who are you?" Zhi Xuan asked, his voice remaining calm, but the will within his soul was ready to explode at any moment.

  The girl did not answer with words. She only stared innocently and smiled brightly, revealing dimples that looked far too alive for someone emerging from the river of death. Her tiny fingers moved nimbly, weaving a thread of light she pulled directly from the surface of the Jiu Quan water.

  "Um, I'm just lost here," the girl chirped, her voice containing echoes from thousands of years ago. She slowly stood up, her hair ribbons bouncing softly. "Is Big Brother lost here too? Mei has been looking for Big Brother for a long time!"

  Zhi Xuan stood frozen, his sapphire eyes narrowing sharply, trying to pierce through any veil of illusion that might shroud the figure before him. However, the more he sharpened his spiritual senses, the more he realized that this little girl's presence held no trace of hatred, demonic aura, or the scent of death that usually accompanied inhabitants of the Underworld River. She seemed so real, so pure.

  "Mei? Is she Mei Hua?" Zhi Xuan thought warily, sharpening his gaze to scrutinize the little girl. "No soul, yet alive. If it were Mei Hua, she would be holding the Lulu doll. And Hua Lian Xi said that Mei Hua went missing then. But this girl calls herself Mei?"

  The little girl jumped down from the black wooden boat with an incredibly light movement. Her bare feet touched the black riverbank soil, but strangely, not a single stain stuck to her snow-white skin. She ran toward Zhi Xuan, bringing with her the fragrant scent of plum blossoms blooming in the middle of winter.

  "Big Brother Zhi Xuan!" she cried out again, this time with a more demanding tone, as if they were close relatives recently separated in a crowded mortal market.

  Zhi Xuan took a step back, his hand reflexively forming a protective mudra within his wide sleeve. "Stop right there. I don't know you, and I don't remember ever having a little sister who weaves threads over the Underworld River."

  The girl's steps halted. She tilted her head, staring at Zhi Xuan with clear, round eyes, but in their depths lay a vortex of light resembling a swirling ancient galaxy. Her smile faded slightly, replaced by a look of sincere confusion.

  "Big Brother doesn't remember?" she whispered sadly. Her eyes welled with tears as she looked at Zhi Xuan. "It's Mei, Mei is looking for Big Brother."

  Zhi Xuan narrowed his eyes, examining the figure before him with the precision of a weaver of destiny. This little girl did indeed have a face identical to Mei Hua—the little girl he had taken in as his sister—but there was a discrepancy piercing his consciousness. The Mei Hua he knew never let go of her embrace on Lulu, the rag doll she considered alive. The girl before him only held a silver weaving needle, and her small hands seemed empty of that doll.

  "Where is Lulu?" Zhi Xuan asked in a low voice, trying to provoke a reaction from the little girl.

  The girl claiming to be Mei blinked her eyes, looking confused for a moment before looking at her own hands. "Lulu? Who is that? Mei is just lost. Mei saw a tall grandfather wearing white clothes! That grandfather said Mei would meet Big Brother again if I rode this boat!"

  "A grandfather in white?" Zhi Xuan thought, his mind wandering back to one person. "The crazy old man and the figure in white robes at the sea of Blood Corpses—could it be him?"

  Zhi Xuan ignored whoever it might be. He crouched down for a moment and opened his arms slightly. "Come here."

  The little girl let out a joyful squeal, her face—which had been cloudy—instantly brightening like the dawn breaking over a snowy mountain peak. She ran, her pink gown fluttering with her light steps, until she finally crashed into Zhi Xuan’s chest.

  Zhi Xuan felt a strange sensation as his body made contact with the girl. She did not feel like flesh and blood, yet she wasn't a cold ghost either. Her existence was like a clump of light wrapped in fine silk—so warm, so familiar, yet possessing a vibration of Law capable of shaking the Samsara Wheel within his chest.

  "Big Brother! Big Brother won't leave Mei again, right?" she chirped while hiding her face behind Zhi Xuan's white robe, her tiny fingers clutching the fabric tightly, as if afraid that if she let go, Zhi Xuan would return to being an unreachable shadow.

  But at that moment, as Zhi Xuan embraced the little girl, something unexpected happened. Zhi Xuan felt a pull and sensed time reversing without being felt. He lost his embrace of the little girl Mei; his eyes widened as he suddenly stood back atop one of the trees. Below him, the hollow of the Underworld River still existed, but what he could not understand was the reversal of time.

  Zhi Xuan stood frozen on the ancient tree branch, his breath caught in his throat. The warmth from the little girl's embrace still lingered on his robe, but the area below was now completely empty. The Underworld River—Jiu Quan—still flowed with a haunting silence, but the black wooden boat and the figure named Mei had vanished as if they were merely a small ripple in a nightmare.

  "Time Reversal?" Zhi Xuan hissed, his sapphire pupils trembling violently. He stared at his own palms, searching for remnants of the girl’s essence, but all he found was the scent of plum blossoms fading in the wind of the void. "What exactly is this?"

  "This is not a mere Soul Illusion," Ruo Xianxue reappeared, her beautiful face now filled with lines of vigilance Zhi Xuan had never seen before. "Zhi Xuan, I have told you repeatedly not to touch or speak to that little girl! She is just as strange as that Mei Hua."