Chapter 298: Can We Even Play Anymore!!!

Suddenly, Wang Ping froze.

Because at the exact moment he discovered the destructive effect Heavenly Yin Metal had on the Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart, the Great Rebellion Exploits, and even the Human Yang Earth's Origin-Governing Battle-Axe-Wielding Fate-Governing Qi, a sudden realization hit him—

'Huh? How do I remember this?'

Before he knew it, his memories of conversing with Heavenly Work, Tianshuang, and even Tianqu had entirely flooded back, as if he had never forgotten them in the first place.

He even recalled what Heavenly Work had told him at the very beginning about why his memories would be obscured: 'Because the five qi-ingesting practitioners are key figures in Purging the Stale Qi of the Six Heavens. If memories of them were to spread in the outside world, it would loosen the seal on the Ancient Qi of the Six Heavens...'

Wang Ping subconsciously looked up at the sky.

A clear sky stretched for ten thousand miles above him. Let alone unnatural phenomena, the atmosphere was as placid as an ancient well. There wasn't the slightest ripple of heaven and earth qi. The seal on the Ancient Qi of the Six Heavens loosening?

It was a lie!

Immediately after, Wang Ping split off a thread of consciousness and entered the Taiping Sutra. There, beside the towering tome, he saw a surging cluster of hazy light.

Its color was hazy and its shape illusory. Resembling both fog and light, it rested quietly within the Taiping Sutra's space, containing profound and unfathomable mysteries.

'This is... what Golden Sea Desiccation pulled out!'

Wang Ping suddenly understood. This was the chief culprit that had caused him to forget Heavenly Work and the others, but it had been entirely rooted out when Golden Sea Desiccation cleansed his sea of consciousness!

A sudden chill erupted from his tailbone and rapidly crawled up to his glabella and into his sea of consciousness. The reason was simple: both were obscured memories, yet Golden Sea Desiccation had only extracted the mystery hiding Heavenly Work and the others. His sea of consciousness still held another set of obscured memories!

Why the difference in treatment?

'Because the obscured memories left untouched by Golden Sea Desiccation must be the ones I deliberately hid myself using the Treasure Cauldron's mystery.'

He was now the master of the Ever-Suppressing Six Harmonies Cauldron.

Therefore, Golden Sea Desiccation treated the Treasure Cauldron's mystery as a part of him. In contrast, the mystery that had obscured the memories of Heavenly Work and the others had nothing to do with the Treasure Cauldron.

That was why it had been purged!

At this thought, Wang Ping gritted his teeth so hard they nearly shattered. 'This is an external force! It just happens to manifest somewhat similarly to the Treasure Cauldron's Concealing Mystery!'

So from the very beginning, Heavenly Work and the others had been deceiving him. There was no rule dictating that his memories had to be obscured after leaving the Cauldron Interior Grotto-Heaven. They had simply played a dirty trick on him. Their goal, in all likelihood, was to prevent him from remembering anything once he got out and discussing it with the Treasure Cauldron Spirit.

Which would have led to their exposure!

'Fucking hell, this crosses the line! Doesn't this count as interfering with the mortal realm? What about the Immortal Decree? Where's the Heaven's Will Profound Blade? Hurry up and smite them!'

While he was deep in thought, Spirit-Invoked Mingyou had already stepped up. Taking Wang Ping's place, he probed the hazy light inside the Taiping Sutra, attempting to analyze what kind of external force it was.

It was no wonder he was a ten-thousand-year Qi Refining practitioner; his experience and cultivation were no joke. After observing it for only a moment, Spirit-Invoked Mingyou actually provided an answer.

'This is the Transformation of Truth and Illusion...'

Wang Ping suddenly froze in place, but Spirit-Invoked Mingyou's thoughts didn't pause for a second. He swiftly deduced the entire mechanism behind this hazy light:

'I see. The one truly affected by this mystery wasn't me, but Heavenly Work and the others. They used this mystery to turn their conversation with me into something false, something that never happened. This indirectly caused me to forget those memories, only to restore them when necessary!'

They had used this method to avoid directly interfering with the mortal realm.

'These Biyang's bastards... exploiting loopholes?'

If it were just that, it wouldn't have been a big deal. It would simply mean Heavenly Work and his group were problematic. However, what truly stunned Wang Ping was the origin of this Transformation of Truth and Illusion.

'The transformation between truth and illusion, reality and falsehood, is inconstant...'

He recognized this kind of mystery.

Although he had only heard of it once, an eidetic memory was a basic requirement for a cultivator. This was the mystery of a certain heaven and earth qi that the Treasure Cauldron Spirit had mentioned to him.

Sun-Dwelling Mysterious Rainbow Inconstant Qi!

Heavenly Yang Earth, the one who left the Ten Thousand Gods Terrestrial Chart in the Secret Record of Divine Abilities but deliberately falsified its corresponding qi—Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang!

'They're in it together.'

Wang Ping lowered his eyelids, the chill deepening. 'Heavenly Yin Metal wasn't a suggestion from Heavenly Work and the others. It was the path Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang chose for me!'

When did this happen?

An intense sense of disbelief filled his heart. It made no sense. Even if the Ever-Suppressing Six Harmonies Cauldron was a Spiritual Treasure and therefore outside the protection of destiny...

...True Persons and Qi Refining practitioners were theoretically barred from entering the Eight Trigrams Furnace, let alone sending in such obviously rule-breaking mysteries. At most, they could cast a glance or transmit a few words, just like Mingyou and Tianxing. It was entirely impossible for them to shake the Treasure Cauldron while it remained on its home turf.

Unless...

In an instant, a name surfaced in Wang Ping's mind. 'Xianfu! Shielded by the Great Shun's national destiny, he's the only one who could bring an outsider's mystery inside!'

Wang Ping immediately thought back to his first meeting with Xianfu.

'At that time, I was clearing the trials inside the Treasure Cauldron. After I defeated Heavenly Work, Heavenly Work's consciousness suddenly awakened. And right after I came out, I ran into Xianfu...'

Realizing this, it all clicked into place for Wang Ping.

'It was then! That was when Xianfu used the Great Shun's national destiny as a cover to smuggle this mystery of the Transformation of Truth and Illusion into the Cauldron Interior Grotto-Heaven!'

From this, it was highly probable that the awakening of Heavenly Work and the others had absolutely nothing to do with him defeating their phantoms. In reality, they had been woken up by Xianfu, who was also present at the time. They were just putting on an act for him, tricking him into walking the path of Heavenly Yin Metal!

Looking at it from this angle...

'Xianfu, and the Daoist Master Xuanxiao Yingyuan behind him—they aren't enemies with Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang, Heavenly Work, or the rest at all.'

They were all co-conspirators!

'Or rather, they might have some disagreements on the details, but their ultimate goals are largely the same. So they reached a limited cooperation in private.'

'No, there's more...'

Inside Wang Ping's sea of consciousness, Spirit-Invoked Mingyou's thoughts raced faster and faster. He actually continued analyzing Wang Ping's memories regarding Tianqu, and then issued another warning:

'Tianqu lied too.'

'According to him, he cultivated Heavenly Yin Wood and Earth Yin Wood, and attempted Human Yin Wood, using them to cultivate the Xun Trigram. This claim is false!'

Wang Ping quickly grasped Spirit-Invoked Mingyou's train of thought.

'I asked Tianqu about this issue back then. He said my cultivation was too low and that the yin and yang of heaven and earth qi could actually be altered by human effort.'

This was indeed true.

However, there was an absolute limit to this kind of alteration!

'Spirit-Invoked Mingyou has also personally altered the yin and yang of heaven and earth qi. The specific method is to use the Three Talents of the human body to harmonize the Three Talents of heaven and earth.'

'Kidney essence, heart spirit, and lung qi.'

'Among these three, kidney essence is water, representing the human body's yin position. The heart spirit is fire, representing the human body's yang position. Lung qi resides in the center, harmonizing water and fire, regulating yin and yang.'

'In other words, by using the body's yin and yang positions, a cultivator can perform the "yin to yang" and "yang to yin" transformations at most once each. Take Mingyou, for example. He used his heart spirit to turn Earth Yin Fire into yang fire. Because his human yang position was already occupied, it became impossible to perform the same operation again.'

So, here lay the problem.

'The arrangement of heaven, earth, and human Three Talents in the Xun Trigram places one yin at the bottom and two yangs at the top. Therefore, in theory, for Tianqu to cultivate this trigram, he needed two yang qis!'

But how did he cultivate it?

'One Heavenly Yin Wood and one Earth Yin Wood. Earth Yin Wood fitting the Xun Trigram is one thing, but he had to transform the Heavenly Yin Wood, just like Mingyou did.'

This would have already consumed his human yang position for the "yin to yang" transformation.

Yet under these circumstances, he actually claimed that the third qi he planned to cultivate was Human Yin Wood—this was wrong! He should have cultivated human-yang wood instead!

Only by cultivating human-yang wood could he arrange the two yangs and one yin of the Xun Trigram.

'So he was lying.'

'He wasn't cultivating the Xun Trigram at all. He was just taking advantage of my low cultivation and my ignorance regarding the methods of altering the attributes of heaven and earth qi, using that to deceive me...'

So, why did he say that?

The reason was simple. Wang Ping figured it out himself without even needing Spirit-Invoked Mingyou's guidance. 'Because human-yang wood is the Profound Firmament Governance-Bestowing Talisman-Wielding Qi!'

This qi held a supreme position. Just like with Xianfu, anyone who wished to command it had to declare themselves an emperor and act as a founding patriarch. So if Tianqu admitted he intended to cultivate human-yang wood, he couldn't avoid a glaring question: as a subject of the Great Rebellion, what could he possibly use to gain the approval of the human-yang wood's imagery?

Even Wang Ping understood such obvious logic.

Therefore, choosing the lesser of two evils, Tianqu could only claim he intended to cultivate Human Yin Wood, hiding this lie within an even deeper Daoist secret.

'Exactly. He wasn't cultivating the Xun Trigram.'

'And the reason he lied and made me think he was cultivating the Xun Trigram... was just to make me link him to the Mysterious Wood Qi Daoist Master outside!'

Because that Mysterious Wood Qi Daoist Master cultivated the Xun Trigram!

In this moment, absolute clarity dawned on Wang Ping.

'He did it to make me think he was that Mysterious Wood Qi Daoist Master. That's why he handed over the Daoist art and claimed he was also cultivating the Xun Trigram.'

'It was all to forge an identity for that Mysterious Wood Qi Daoist Master.'

'They are connected too!'

At the instant of this epiphany, Wang Ping's thoughts seemed to finally brush against some unseen, destined karma. It was like a pebble on the verge of being tossed into a tranquil lake.

But right then, Spirit-Invoked Mingyou instantly intervened. He operated the Treasure Cauldron's mystery, burying all of Wang Ping's epiphanies from that brief moment.

Concealing Mystery!

Obscuring the memories, severing the karma... Under this operation, the pebble that was about to hit the lake was intercepted. The karma that was supposed to be triggered remained entirely undisturbed.

No one noticed any anomaly.

Only Wang Ping appeared to stand there with a normal expression, while in reality, tempestuous waves surged in his heart. Even though the memories of the deductive process had been forgotten...

...the conclusion remained unhidden.

After all, knowing the result without knowing the cause wouldn't trigger any unnatural phenomena in heaven and earth. Spirit-Invoked Mingyou had perfectly controlled the degree of concealment.

But this conclusion alone was enough to make most people despair.

'The Daoist Master Xuanxiao Yingyuan behind Xianfu, the Mysterious Wood Qi Daoist Master, Tianqu and the others, Daoist Master Hanguang Danyang—they colluded a long time ago.'

'United from top to bottom, collaborating inside and out!'

'And I was actually kept completely in the dark by them!!!'