[Juzi] was giving it everything she had. Her ears were perked up as she listened, but she did not say a word.
Persimmon acted as her mouthpiece.
“Shopkeeper, who are you talking about? Everyone’s power attributes are different. Is there really someone whose attributes can harmonize with all of ours?”
Chen Miemie was quite pleased with Persimmon’s reaction. In the past, every sentence she said had ended with a question mark. Now the tables had finally turned, and he was the one providing the answers.
“Come to think of it, I got the inspiration for this method from your [Story] ability, Persimmon. I don’t know whether it will work, but I can give it a try.”
Chen Miemie spoke vaguely. Persimmon refused to let it go. She rushed over, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shook him violently.
“You still haven’t said who you found! Hurry up and tell me!”
Chen Miemie was currently in his [Yellow Garment] state, making him largely immune to physical attacks. A little shaking was nothing to him.
His entire body, along with his yellow robes, dissolved into specks of light, slipping free from Persimmon’s clutches. When he reassembled, he was already floating in midair.
Hovering above them, he gazed at the Eternal Moon overhead and murmured in a voice only he could hear:
“Since ancient times, the most numerous inhabitants of this City of Books have never been the books, but the readers.
“The sixteen of you established the seal and have long since become books and stories, passed down through the ages.
“At this moment, you are both readers and characters in a story. Behind you stand the countless people who have read your stories.
“Let’s try this move. It was only a spur-of-the-moment idea, and I’m honestly not sure it will work.
“[Eternal Moon: The Flow of Time].”
As Chen Miemie exerted his power, the light of the Eternal Moon suddenly brightened several degrees. Its yellow radiance enveloped the entire [Grand Library].
Below, [Juzi] and Persimmon stared wide-eyed.
[Juzi] was a Great Sage. The fact that she could set up a formation across an entire city already made her the strongest existence among the witches—a supreme combatant who had roamed across a hundred cities.
Yet this [Shopkeeper] had merely waved his sleeve, and moonlight had illuminated an entire city at his command. He seemed almost beyond the realm of mortals.
[Juzi] looked suspiciously at Persimmon.
“Someone like that—and you can actually do him a great favor?”
Persimmon was very pleased with herself.
“Of course. I even collected the opening of a story from the [Shopkeeper].”
The two of them waited below for quite some time. Although Chen Miemie had created an astonishing spectacle, all he had done was make the moonlight brighter. There were no special effects, nor did the books suffer any attacks. Nothing else happened for a long while.
They assumed the effect was still building up, that a super move naturally needed time to take effect, so they waited quietly.
Ten minutes later.
A breeze rustled a few leaves.
Persimmon craned her neck and called tentatively, “Shopkeeper, what’s going on?”
Chen Miemie flew down. Even his face, formed from specks of light, looked a little embarrassed.
“This move was a sudden idea. I didn’t expect it not to work.”
Hearing such an unreliable explanation, Persimmon nearly fell over.
[Juzi] said nothing, but a faint darkness appeared in her eyes.
After more than ten minutes, not only she but also the other fifteen guardians at the sealing sites were nearly exhausted. The actual drain caused by this grand formation was even greater than they had anticipated.
Persimmon did not blame him. Chen Miemie had come to help in the first place, so she immediately changed her approach and tried to think of another solution.
But before Persimmon could turn back to [Juzi]’s side, a hazy phantom appeared behind [Juzi] amid the almost-viscous moonlight.
The figure wore a scholar’s robe. Its features were indistinct. It stood silently, holding a book and reading with its head bowed.
Suddenly, it seemed to notice [Juzi] and the sealing diagram before it.
It gave a slight nod.
“Year 1320 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Scholar Old Mattress, reading The Organizational Charter and Program of the Academy.”
Before Persimmon could react, a second phantom appeared.
“Year 2280 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Witch Iris, reading Before the Rain Stops.”
Then a third.
“Year 2760 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Mystic Grayback, reading The Kiln-Change Treatise.”
A fourth, then a fifth.
“Year 600 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Scholar Broken Chapter, reading Diary of Sharpening Knives.”
“Year 3120 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Mystic Tile, reading Miscellany of Juggling.”
The fifth phantom appeared right beside Persimmon. She instinctively reached out, only to find that her hand passed straight through it.
Before Persimmon could voice her question, [Juzi] cried out in delight.
“These phantoms... They’re helping me complete the seal! Their power of reading can resonate with mine!”
Persimmon immediately understood what Chen Miemie had meant earlier:
“I’ll find people who can lend you their power.”
The two witches looked at the ever-growing number of phantoms around them, then at the rapidly advancing progress of the seal. Smiles spread across their faces.
“Year 840 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Mystic Needle-Thread Swallower, reading The Midwife’s Notes.”
“Year 720 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Witch Blunt Needle, reading The Herb-Hoe Record.”
“Year 1560 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Scholar Startle, reading Chronicle of the Rice Trade.”
“First year of the Eighth Epoch, [Reading Day]. Scholar Stone Speaker, reading The Civil Code.”
“Year 1920 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Witch Overnight Tea, reading The Salt Workers’ Ledger.”
The phantoms quickly became densely packed, surrounding the two witches on all sides.
The same thing was happening at the other fifteen sealing sites.
A high-ranking witch who had been struggling to hold on suddenly discovered a phantom appearing beside her.
“Year 360 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Mystic Seventh Sense, reading The Pawnshop Canon.”
“Year 2760 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Witch Suppressed Laughter, reading Night Talks at the Tea Lodge.”
“First year of the Eighth Epoch, [Reading Day]. Scholar Carpenter, reading Between Mortise and Tenon.”
“Year 2040 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Scholar Sour Tooth, reading Bone and Horn Carving.”
Beside a scholar who had already reached the brink of collapse, the sound of pages turning rang out.
“Year 2880 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Scholar Cracked, reading The Chronicle of the Sealed Library.”
“Year 3000 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Witch Broken Comb, reading The Physiognomy of Bones.”
“First year of the Eighth Epoch, [Reading Day]. Witch Mortar Granny, reading The Molting Manual.”
“Year 3120 of the Seventh Epoch, [Reading Day]. Mystic Bridge Duke, reading The Two Ends of the Bridge.”
On the rooftop.
Overcome with excitement, Persimmon grabbed Chen Miemie again.
“Judging by the years, these people are all from the future? You... You used the power of time and space to bring them across time to reinforce us?!”
Chen Miemie first shook his head, then nodded.
“This isn’t the power of time. It’s the power of reading.
“Every act of reading is a journey through time—a condensed history, a transplanted soul, a crossing of the ages.”
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
