Tome of Troubled Times-Chapter 901: The Wandering Heavenly Tome

Inside the world, the women stared, dumbfounded by Zhao Changhe’s latest stunt.

No one had ever considered the possibility of running off with the entire world, not even Ye Wuming. Her approach to hiding the Heavenly Tome’s world had always relied on spatial transference, slipping it into alternate dimensions. She had never once entertained the notion of simply pocketing it and fleeing.

A frog in a well only knows the sky to be as large as the mouth of the well permits it to see. Even someone like Ye Wuming, who had stepped beyond the bounds of her world and roamed the myriad realms, still struggled to conceptualize her own world as something small enough to carry.

This kind of thinking could only come from true outsiders. The original Heavenly Dao, for instance, or Zhao Changhe.

After all, had they not always said that the Heavenly Tome was a divine treasure? What were such treasures if not objects that can be brought around? If it were something that could only be anchored in a single place, then it was not a treasure but an array... or a trap.

And besides, hadn’t anyone seen The Wandering Earth?[1]

Sitting around here waiting to be hunted down, was that not the behavior of idiots? The Heavenly Dao had already left behind countless hidden marks here, yet they had wasted thirty years doing nothing? That time could have been used to flee into the furthest reaches of the cosmos. Who would ever find them then?

So what truly was the mighty Night Emperor who had schemed across two eras? Wasn’t she just a frog, after all?

As he entertained these... entertaining thoughts, Zhao Changhe was merrily bolting away.

Inside the tome, however, the women were anything but merry. No matter how ridiculous the situation seemed, they all understood how dangerous it truly was.

Zhao Changhe was facing an enemy who was at the Other Shore Realm. He was being hunted, and he was practically alone.

Under that kind of pressure, he had to dodge and weave at lightning speed. One would expect the people inside the “vehicle” to be tossed around like luggage. But strangely, there was no such sensation. Everything inside remained perfectly stable, as though nothing was happening outside.

A closer look revealed the reason for this. Zhao Changhe had wrapped the Heavenly Tome in a stable field of energy. No matter how he moved, the world nestled calmly in his arms, unmoving as a mountain.

Even in the thick of peril, he had the spare brainpower and energy to keep everyone inside comfortable.

“I’m going out there to help him!” Ye Jiuyou surged upward, trying to break through the barrier of the world.

Ye Wuming grabbed her wrist. “Don’t. We’ve yet to break into the Other Shore. If we force ourselves into combat now, there will be casualties. What he fears most is anyone getting hurt. Do you really think it’s the final battle he’s afraid of?”

Ye Jiuyou glanced at her. Ye Wuming’s mouth was still stained with blood.

If Ye Wuming had been at full strength, maybe they could have fought. But the timing could not have been worse. With the strongest force of their side injured, Zhao Changhe had thrown himself into the jaws of death, hoping she would recover quickly enough to turn the tide.

Ye Jiuyou could not help but feel a twinge of guilt. If they had not pulled that stunt with the love letter... Zhao Changhe would not have been facing this alone.

Her usual edge was gone. She turned away and said, “For now, we follow Changhe’s lead. You focus on recovery. I’ll speak with the others about the witchcraft.”

Ye Wuming watched her go, her gaze dazed and wordless.

Nearby, Ling Ruoyu clutched River of Stars, voice timid, “Mom... is there anything I can do?”

Ye Wuming looked at her, and her eyes softened. “I’m granting you shared access to the Night Palace. If the time comes, you’ll be able to command its defensive arrays.”

“You’re giving me control of the Night Palace? But what about you?”

“I’m going to the Four Idols Cult. I made arrangements with them earlier... I didn’t think I would need to follow through this soon, though.”

Ling Ruoyu hesitated. Your gaze can see across time itself. You’ve predicted so many things, and most of them have come true. So how did you miss something as small as a love letter? Is it because... you can’t see things directly related to yourself?

But now was not the time to ask such questions. She simply stood still as Ye Wuming raised a finger and tapped her gently on the forehead.

A strange sensation washed over her. The environment seemed to merge with her very being. She could feel not just the Night Palace, but also the power of heaven and earth, bending to her will. Ling Ruoyu was shocked by this. “Mom...”

“Don’t panic.” Ye Wuming gave a faint smile. “I’m not doing this because I plan to die.”

Ling Ruoyu clamped her mouth shut.

I didn’t even say anything...

Ye Wuming let out a sigh. It was not quite right to say she could not predict her own fate. There were still certain broad strokes along her thread of fate that she could trace. It was just that whenever she followed that thread to its furthest point, she always saw the same thing: a world in which Ye Wuming no longer existed.

But now, when she looked again, everything was blurred. The thread that once seemed to end abruptly now stubbornly unraveled from a single knot, snaking out into the unknown.

Fate can be altered, as long as one wields enough power and a will that refuses to yield.

But that will was not her own. She had never harbored such resolve.

Then whose is it?

“Without my permission, you’re not allowed to die.”

Ye Wuming glanced upward. In his arms lay an entire world. At this moment, she could tell that he was bearing the pressure of countless lives depending on him, and it was clear that he had a strong sense of ownership and responsibility. Ye Wuming flung the strange thoughts emerging in her mind and hurtled down to the capital.

What sense of ownership? If he’s feeling any ownership, then it’s obviously going to be ownership over the Heavenly Tome, not the people inside it. But since I’m one with the Heavenly Tome, then I’m the Heavenly Tome...

“Your Majesty.” A voice drifted up from below. Ye Wuming looked down to see Huangfu Qing and the Four Idols Cult standing around the underground altar, faces as grave as stone. “We demand an explanation.”

“You’d do better to ask Ye Jiuyou, Piaomiao, and Tang Wanzhuang.” Ye Wuming settled cross-legged atop the altar. “Thank heavens Zhao Changhe still has some moral integrity. If he actually took advantage of me when I was vulnerable, then I would have been reduced to dust when the Heavenly Dao broke in.”

Lady Three’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you’re talking about Zhao Changhe when you say ‘moral integrity’?”

Ye Wuming shot her a sideways glance. “I am.”

The Four Idols Cult collectively took a half-step back.

They had all passed through roughly three stages with him. In the beginning, they would think him utterly shameless. Then, just as they had begun to fall in love, they convinced themselves his honor was boundless, that their earlier doubts were folly. Finally, after years together, they understood he was entirely incompatible with the notion of honor. It was a trilogy of realizations, as natural as watching a mountain shift in the mist. Now they felt like veterans watching a newcomer make the same mistakes.

“What’s with those expressions on your faces?” Ye Wuming cut in, oblivious to their thoughts. “Enough stalling. We need the full might of the Four Idols Formation, and I’ll be the core of the formation. No more overloading Xia Chichi with two roles. Yue Hongling, step into position. Everyone else, take your places.”

At her command, Yue Hongling staggered onto the platform below, shocked, and the others, though equally stunned, fell into formation. Ye Wuming’s power was too great. She had not moved a muscle, yet she had plucked a living person from Miaojiang and brought them to the capital. And it was not just any person she had done this to; it was Yue Hongling, a third-layer Profound Control Realm cultivator and the world’s strongest swordswoman. Despite her strength, she had been unable to put up any resistance. No, forget about resisting; she hadn’t even had a flicker of awareness before she arrived.

So this is Ye Wuming... Even our most generous estimates of her strength aren’t even close to the truth. And that stupid bear plans to have her as well?

Ye Wuming said calmly, “The Four Idols Formation serves many purposes. You’ve focused solely on its destructive might, neglecting its mystical intricacies. That’s not your fault, though. The legacy itself is flawed. But for now, you’ll follow my orders.”

Yue Hongling quenched down her emotions and asked, “What do you need us to do?”

Ye Wuming’s eyes shifted to the southwest. “Wait for my signal. This time, witchcraft is our main weapon.”

If witchcraft could sway Ye Wuming, then it should be capable of affecting the Heavenly Dao itself. And the materials they had gathered against the Heavenly Dao were far more plentiful than a single hair...

Since the Ye sisters’ awakening, this was Ye Wuming’s first gesture of cooperation, positioning herself to support Ye Jiuyou.

At the witchcraft altar at Miaojiang.

Before Ye Wuming made for the capital, Ye Jiuyou slammed down the enormous corpse puppet onto the altar with a heavy thud, its massive form blanketing the entire Erhai Plain.

Piaomiao swiftly unfurled the pouch of demonic souls that Cui Yuanyang, Baoqin, and the others had collected earlier, spilling its contents directly onto the corpse puppet without hesitation.

The demonic souls howled as they surged into the corpse puppet’s body. Its steel-like frame began to shimmer with a sheen of supple, lifelike muscle. It was less of a corpse puppet now and more of a crude imitation of the Heavenly Dao itself. It bore a striking resemblance to the “creation” process Ye Jiuyou had once demonstrated.

This was neither traditional corpse puppetry nor true creation. This was the same witchcraft often involving straw or wooden effigies—stand-ins that, once linked, would inflict damage upon the original. But in the hands of Ye Jiuyou and Piaomiao, this puppet was in an entirely different league. This was not some crude straw figurine. This was a direct replica of the original Heavenly Dao.

It had once been intended only as a tool to track the Heavenly Dao’s original body. Now, in hindsight, that seemed laughably excessive. When the enemy was right before you, there were so many more methods that could be used to great effect.

Ye Jiuyou gently touched the center of the corpse puppet’s forehead. Slowly, the corpse puppet opened its eyes.

* * *

Though the preparation on both sides sounded extensive, in truth, it all happened in just a few moments, even less than the time it had taken Zhao Changhe to murmur a few words to Ye Wuming.

And in those brief moments, Zhao Changhe skirted death more than once.

Back when Ling Ruoyu used River of Stars to briefly sever space, Zhao Changhe had used that moment to flee and gain distance. But that fleeting delay was all the time she could buy him. The Heavenly Dao soon repaired the fabric of space and came chasing after him.

Zhao Changhe teleported, covering tens of thousands of li in a single step. It looked impressive. But in the scale of the cosmos, tens of thousands of li was no more significant than the diameter of a speck of dust. To the Heavenly Dao, Zhao Changhe had never truly left his sight.

The Heavenly Dao flicked a finger.

Just as Zhao Changhe prepared to blink another distance away, he suddenly felt the space around him twist violently, and he stopped abruptly.

Had he reacted even a fraction of a second slower, his entire body would have been torn apart. Thankfully, his reflexes were fast enough. He slammed on the brakes immediately and realized in an instant that what he called blinking, flashing, or teleportation was not truly instantaneous movement but the manipulation of folded space to jump from one point to another. And if it involved spatial distortion, then it could absolutely be disrupted. The Heavenly Dao simply needed to shatter the space he was traversing, turning it into a meat grinder. If he remained intent on charging through that shattered space, then it would be no different from sending himself to his death.

With such a disparity in their cultivation, even if he tried to stabilize the space himself, he was still no match.

What now? Am I going to be forced to abandon teleportation entirely and fly manually?

Zhao Changhe’s thoughts whirled. He reached into his robes and drew out the Heavenly Tome.

The Heavenly Tome glowed faintly, and the shattered space ahead of him instantly smoothed out. He blinked forward unhindered.

Right, the Heavenly Tome’s a magical treasure! And the page of space and time is one of the most important ones. There’s no way it doesn’t have a bunch of useful abilities.

The Heavenly Dao, watching from behind, was momentarily stunned.

I spent two entire eras trying to use that treasure, and it never obeyed me. You touch it once and it obeys you?

Little did he know that in the Four Idols altar, Ye Wuming’s cheeks flushed with faint embarrassment. As the spirit of the tome, she could feel Zhao Changhe’s earlier “touch” as a very real, very tactile sensation. It had been complete with a somewhat indecent infusion of “magical power” meant to communicate with the tome spirit: “Clear the path ahead for your master.”

Technically, that was exactly how magical treasures were supposed to be used. They had even tested it before using the replica Heavenly Tome, so the method was sound.

Also technically, the spirit of the tome had every right to refuse him. She had not acknowledged him as her master, so who was he to order her around?

Yet in that moment, the tome spirit put up no resistance whatsoever.

What could she do? Ye Wuming sighed and transmitted, “Stall him for just a little longer. Try not to draw too heavily on the Heavenly Tome’s power, or I won’t recover anytime soon.”

“I know. This move was just to make him think it won’t work again, so he’ll try something else.”

“Mm-hm.” Ye Wuming said, “...Be careful.”

“Heh...”

Zhao Changhe had effortlessly bypassed the Heavenly Dao’s spatial disruption by mooching off his treasure. The Heavenly Dao, now thwarted, seemed to concede that spatial disruption was a dead end. All he could do now was rely on the sheer length of his strides, which were bigger than Zhao Changhe’s, to chase him down in earnest.

Zhao Changhe glanced over his shoulder, a faint flicker of surprise in his eyes.

The Heavenly Dao’s blinks covered distances vastly greater than Zhao Changhe’s, so much so that he was upon him in an instant. Yet, surprisingly, his display of power did not match the level of Ye Wuming, who could build stable spatial passages and traverse realms at will.

Was it simply a matter of different specialties? Perhaps the Heavenly Dao’s mastery over space truly could not compare to Ye Wuming’s. Or... perhaps he was wary of the Heavenly Tome, afraid that a spatial passage could be turned against him?

Either way, Zhao Changhe felt a surge of renewed confidence in his escape.

Whoosh!

A burst of energy approached. The Heavenly Dao had already reached striking distance.

Zhao Changhe did not hesitate. He spun and slashed behind him with Dragon Bird, meeting the incoming force head-on. The resulting explosion blasted him across the void, slamming his body viciously into a small planetary mass. The small planet crumbled into dust on impact, scattering across the void.

Zhao Changhe wiped the blood from his mouth and used the momentum to flee once more.

There was no denying it: He could not win. The difference in power was absolute. Fortunately, Dragon Bird had been reforged just in time; their combined strength allowed him to withstand the attack, if only barely.

Bringing the saber to Night Palace had been a precaution against Ye Wuming’s unpredictable intentions. Who would have thought that it would serve him here instead?

At the same time, the fact that he took a hit and survived was already telling. He was not so weak as to be instantly crushed.

“Zhao Changhe...” The Heavenly Dao’s voice echoed from behind, calm yet oppressive. “You can’t escape across the vastness of space. With no air, no gravity... your current strength may barely sustain you here, but your power is clearly diminished. Why persist in this meaningless struggle?”

The Heavenly Dao was trying to talk him down now. Clearly, Zhao Changhe’s resilience had surprised even him.

“You’ve got a screw loose.” Zhao Changhe flipped him off. “Am I supposed to just hand you my head?”

“There’s no mortal grudge between us. Hand over the Heavenly Tome, and I’ll spare your life. What say you?”

Zhao Changhe replied with just two words, “Eat shit.”

“You—!”

“What? This tome’s filled with my wives, and you think I’m just handing it over? How about you let me borrow your wife for a bit first?”

“...You can take the people. What use do I have for them?”

“The Ye sisters are the spirits born of the Heavenly Tome. Take the people and leave the tome? Fine, strip your wife’s soul and give me her body to play with.”

“Insolence!”

“I’ve been a rebel my whole damn life. I don’t do obedience. Now get lost!”

Whoosh!

Mid-conversation, the Heavenly Dao suddenly appeared ahead, blocking his path. Clearly, negotiation had been a ploy to shake his will. He had never intended to let Zhao Changhe go.

But Zhao Changhe had expected this. His forward charge had also been a feint. In the blink of an eye, he dropped into a sharp dive, plunging downward.

The universe was not two-dimensional. His escape had always been aimed in a specific direction.

The Heavenly Dao had not been wrong earlier. The vacuum of space was hostile to Zhao Changhe. He was not yet at a level where he could roam the cosmos freely. Prolonged exposure might kill him even without the Heavenly Dao’s interference. He needed a real battleground, one where he could plant his feet. Some were more grounded, more familiar.

These drifting celestial rocks were not viable. What he needed was that cultivation world he had visited last time. That was his battlefield.

Or rather, the superior world behind that world. After all, that one felt like a lower-tier world, possibly worse even than the Heavenly Tome’s world. It was thus highly likely that it was merely a subsidiary world, and the main environment in which that world was located was a genuine grand cultivation world. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

That was probably the world that was capable of producing both this “Heavenly Dao” guy and a treasure of the magnitude of the Heavenly Tome. And if they had all come from there, then it could not be far.

It was entirely possible that this whole segmentum was part of that cultivation segmentum. In the scope of a vast cultivation segmentum, an ordinary cultivation planet was likely merely a province or district.

This is a chaotic starry sea, for all intents and purposes. All I need to do is reach a planet. Then, I’ll know if my guess is right.

He looked down. A planet loomed below, closer than he expected.

A violent force crashed downward from above. The Heavenly Dao had grown impatient.

However, Zhao Changhe’s heart remained steady. Instead of fear, his momentum surged. With Dragon Bird in hand, he leaped upward and roared, “Get lost!”

This was no longer just raw energy, it contained countless variations and laws.

Zhao Changhe had long suspected the main law that the Heavenly Dao cultivated... and if he was not mistaken, it was time.

Otherwise, how could an immortal like Jiuyou say “it all just comes down to the cold moon and burning sun, scorching human life to dust?”

Boom!

In the instant they collided, Zhao Changhe experienced flourishing and withering.

Zhao Changhe’s black hair turned white in a flash, and his entire body plummeted like a kite with its strings cut.

Blood spattered across the void.

Yet the blood that burst out from his lips was accompanied not by a groan, but by laughter.

“Time is ruthless, fate a farce... In the end, that’s all it is. What is the Other Shore? It’s never been all that complicated. To transcend all of this, is to reach the Other Shore.”

1. This is the 2019 Chinese science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo, loosely based on the 2000 short story of the same name by Liu Cixin. ☜