Tome of Troubled Times-Chapter 815 (1): Reversing Time, Severing Karma

Ye Jiuyou had departed first, returning to the Abyss of Jiuyou. Zhao Changhe’s earlier mention of karmic entanglements had struck a deeper chord than she let on, prompting her to return to her stronghold to search for any lingering traces or hidden clues.

After all, there was not much left for her to enjoy here. Piaomiao was probably about to be spied on while bathing, which may have been amusing under other circumstances, but to her personal dismay, Jiuyou could not witness it herself. She figured she would come back later to enjoy watching them both blush in embarrassment.

Now, Piaomiao was left holding a page of the Heavenly Tome, locked in a silent, awkward stare with Zhao Changhe. Neither of them was in the mood to get back to business.

It had not been so bad with Jiuyou still around, but the moment she left... the lone man and woman left behind made the atmosphere unbearably awkward.

Piaomiao subtly shifted where she stood. Upon waking, she still felt a lingering stickiness. What in the world is that?

Her body remained weak and soft, devoid of strength. It was as if her body wanted nothing more than to lie back down. Heavy kiss marks adorned her neck, the kind that made one wonder just how much force had been used.

Clearly, it was not so easy to deceive herself by pretending that the act of sleep severed her from responsibility. The body was hers, and every trace would be experienced and remembered the moment she resumed control. And in all actuality, she had not even been fully asleep. There had been that one moment when she had woken up in the middle...

At that moment, it had been her, Piaomiao, who had been experiencing everything, in body and soul.

Under normal circumstances, Piaomiao would have awoken much sooner. It was just that she had been stalling. She was unsure of how to face him, so she had delayed on purpose. For a moment, she even considered letting Cui Yuanyang take over again and deal with the aftermath, but then she thought better of it. No, that won’t do. If I hand the body back over to Cui Yuanyang right now, who knows what the girl might get up to?

Even if she could not bear to face him, she had to steel herself and keep control. That bad fox who looked like a rabbit needed to be shoved back into the spiritual sea and forced to stay put.

The two stood in silence, painfully awkward, until Zhao Changhe finally broke the silence and asked, “How’s Yangyang?”

Expressionless, Piaomiao replied, “She still has not woken up. You...”

She trailed off. She truly wanted to ask, “How could you bear to be so rough with such a delicate girl? You’re a beast.”

Zhao Changhe said evenly, “Between husband and wife, the more fervent the effort, the happier she is.”

Piaomiao managed a reply, though barely. “Spare me that talk.”

Zhao Changhe shrugged. “I understand your cultivation has yet to return to its peak, and you still need to use this body to continue your training. I won’t press for more. But... could we at least make an arrangement? Can you let Yangyang come out for a little while each day?”

Piaomiao pursed her lips for a long time. She very much wanted to refuse outright, but she also knew that doing so would risk souring everything between them. Finally, she said, “I can allow her out during the hour of the dragon[1] every day, but can I request that... during that time, can you two not engage in that sort of thing? It really isn’t urgent.”

She had deliberately chosen that time of the morning with the logic that they were less likely to get frisky at such a time...

Zhao Changhe found himself amused for reasons he could not quite explain. He deliberately teased, “We won’t do that... but what about kissing?”

Piaomiao pressed her fingers to her temples, exasperated. “You manage yourselves... I really don’t want to have this conversation.”

Zhao Changhe said, “When I extended my soul into yours back then, I didn’t do it intentionally. It was to see if, through dual cultivation, I could find a way to separate the two of you.”

Piaomiao nearly died of secondhand embarrassment. “I know. So? What did you find?”

“I couldn’t find a solution for now.” Zhao Changhe fell into brief contemplation, then asked, “Just now, Ye Jiuyou asked me to seek out Papiyas... I’m thinking, since Papiyas is an expert on the mind, and excels at drawing out the deepest desires of one’s soul, maybe he can offer some insight?”

Piaomiao exhaled, relieved they were finally back to serious topics. Enough of the awkward stuff already. She quickly replied, “Perhaps. Aside from Ye Wuming, Papiyas is likely the only other one who might have a method. As for Jiuyou... she’s excellent at making things worse, but unraveling and separating things with precision isn’t exactly her expertise.”

“Alright, I’ll make sure to pay close attention when the time comes.”

With that, the conversation came to a halt once again, slipping into another awkward silence.

After a while, it was Piaomiao who finally spoke, “So... Now that I’m holding the Heavenly Tome page, what exactly are you trying to do?”

“I need to observe time and peer into karma. I won’t touch the page myself to avoid giving Ye Wuming the chance to complete the nine pages. That’s why it has to be held by you or Ye Jiuyou. In your hands, she won’t be able to snatch it away in an instant,” Zhao Changhe said. “Last time, Ye Jiuyou was simply holding it so I could draw insight from it. Now that it’s in your hands, you should gain insight too. Let’s do it together.”

Who wants to do anything with you... But Piaomiao stifled her retort and instead said, “Fine.”

Though they shared a task, their goals were different. Piaomiao wished to glimpse the laws of space and time hidden within the Heavenly Tome, whereas Zhao Changhe still sought to trace karma through the currents of time. The last time, with Ye Jiuyou holding the tome, everything he saw pertained to her. Now, with Piaomiao as the holder, she naturally became the focus of his vision.

He had already seen Piaomiao’s karmic ties with the four divine swords of the mountains and rivers through the Qinghe Sword, including her many conversations with the ancient Azure Dragon... and the memorable bathing scene had come from that very vision.

This time, Zhao Changhe deliberately traced her path back to its origin, seeking the root of Piaomiao’s creation.

To his surprise, it was much easier than peering into Ye Jiuyou’s past.

Piaomiao had not existed since the beginning of heaven and earth. She had emerged only after the world had become filled with living beings and the concept of nations had taken shape. One could say her birth had come rather late. In that sense, she was not truly a primordial demon god but, more accurately, a natural god—one born of humanity’s collective will.

Once nations began to form, the concept of “mountains and rivers of a nation” took on concrete meaning, giving rise to a god of the land. The dragon qi and the qi veins of mountains and rivers so often spoken of by mortals condensed into divine form, coalescing among these vast mountains and rivers. Across dynasties, emperors conducted offering rites to the god of the land, and when they worshipped the god of the land, it was her they were worshiping.

This god was nameless at birth, for it was shapeless and elusive. Indeed, what would later come to be known as Piaomiao had been no more than a misty condensation of the qi of the mountains and rivers. As her strength gradually grew, she began to take on form, eventually manifesting as a woman. She was a figure like moonlight upon water, graceful and serene.

They said Xia Longyuan had lost the favor of the qi veins. Had Piaomiao been present at the time, it would have manifested as her turning her back on him, refusing to lend him power. But she had not been there, and yet events had still unfolded in the exact same way. In other words, this god was ultimately... unnecessary. Like the Frost Chi, she could revert into abstraction or passivity; she did not need to exist as a tangible, personified force.

She could be killed.

Ye Wuming had already proven as much.

Zhao Changhe could not help feeling somewhat hypocritical. He had once told the Frost Chi that “what is passive should return to passivity,” and yet he found himself reluctant to say the same about Piaomiao. But it was not because he had double standards, necessarily. His standard remained consistent: the distinction between good and evil. Piaomiao had done nothing wrong. Every action of hers had been benevolent. With that being the case, why should she be destroyed?

Unlike Ye Wuming, who was indeed the type to uproot both thorny bushes and fragrant flowers should they block her path forward, Zhao Changhe still weighed virtue first. To Ye Wuming, it did not matter whether something was good or bad. If it stood in her way, it had to die. Zhao Changhe was not like that.

In short, Piaomiao had not been wrong in what she had said earlier: In today’s world, Zhao Changhe was the pillar upholding the realm. And she, born for the sake of these lands and people, would become a great aid to him.

If Piaomiao had any flaws, they were perhaps twofold. First, she lacked human emotions. She had no personal desires, perhaps not even a sense of shame. She operated with a cold detachment, following her divine mandate with chilling precision. In a manner not unlike Ye Wuming’s, if a righteous man obstructed the greater good of the nation, she would destroy him all the same. Second, she now harbored deep resentment toward Ye Wuming.

These two traits were, in a way, contradictory. For if she truly embodied the first, then she had no right to possess the second.

On the flip side, if she could feel hatred... then was she truly emotionless?

Since her awakening, she had shown abundant signs of shame. She even appeared to be nearly overwhelmed by it, at times. And with emotions like love and hate now coloring her actions, could she still act with the same impartiality, the same unwavering dedication to the mountains and rivers as she had in the ancient era?

The answer was no.

The Piaomiao of the ancient era would never have allied herself with Ye Jiuyou. She would have felt repulsion at the mere sight of her. That Piaomiao’s foremost objective would have been to assist the Great Han in unifying and absorbing Guanlong. But this Piaomiao, after all this time spent in Ye Jiuyou’s company, had done nothing more than trade cold remarks with her. They had not even fought. She had not even so much as asked about Guanlong.

“How about it? Now that you’ve seen your origin and compared it with who you are today... what do you think?”

But this question was not asked in the present. It was asked at the end of the long river of time, at the very moment Piaomiao first began to coalesce into a form.

1. This is between 7:00-9:00 a.m. ☜

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