The stone wall was engraved with the images of Qin Zhong and Yu Gong, two Divine Generals of the previous generation. The hands of the images were holding onto two chains that bound her feet. This was an array that Wang Zhice had laid down back then. For the past several hundred years, no one, not even the little Black Dragon herself, had been able to pull out these two chains from the wall. Even if Chen Changsheng had used the Canon of Flowing West and his own blood, he could only hope that it would be possible in two years. Logically speaking, a stone wall with such a powerful array should have cut off all external life, making it impossible for any plant to grow, but now a clump of green leaves had grown.
This clump of green leaves only had three leaves. They had originally been very plump and tender, but now they seemed rather thin and weak, as if they had consumed a great deal of energy.
Perhaps it was because the roots of this clump of green leaves were too developed?
Countless roots, so thin that they were almost invisible to the naked eye, grew out from the bottom of the clump of green leaves and began to spread along the images on the stone wall. Some of them found the tiniest crack, penetrated deep into the stone wall, and then, under the illumination of the rainbow, began to madly grow.
The rainbow and the clump of green leaves from the Li Palace were currently attempting to break this array.
The little Black Dragon did not know what was going on or why, so she was very perplexed, and then nervous. Her small face was pale, and the cinnabar birthmark between her eyebrows became even more striking.
… …
… …
What illuminated the world was not starlight, but a rainbow.
When these rainbows came together, they were colorless. Silently and unnoticed, they shone on New North Bridge, and they shone on the Frost Flower Shop.
The Frost Flower Shop had a seemingly unremarkable but actually heavily guarded garden called the Orange Garden. It was Mo Yu's former residence, and also the prison where she was now placed under house arrest.
Under the illumination of the colorless and formless rainbow, the array in the Orange Garden was like a thin layer of snow under the blazing sun, quietly melting. It did not alarm anyone or the frogs hibernating in the snow.
Several small lanterns made from orange peels were hung over the window. They were very cute, and when the light seeped out, it was red, warmer than reality.
Mo Yu knelt on the prayer mat, facing the Li Palace. Her eyes were closed, her long eyelashes blinking. She felt incomparably warm.
This was the Pope's final redemption for her. Perhaps it had something to do with her arranging for Chen Changsheng to enter the Orthodox Academy, or perhaps it had nothing to do with it, but it was all redemption.
The rainbow vanished and the treasures of the Orthodoxy in the Grass Moon Hall and the other halls gradually calmed down.
The chill at New North Bridge grew even colder, and the black hole in the snow seemed like it was about to crack open from the cold.
The orange trees in Frost Flower Shop were covered with fresh frost. It was a rare and beautiful scene. The lamp in front of the window was still warm, and there was no one on the futon.
…
…
The Pope's funeral was held very quickly, as everything had been prepared.
The diplomatic missions from White Emperor City and the south did not leave the capital after the celebration because they were all mentally prepared.
It was precisely because they were prepared that although the people of the world were sad, they were not too shocked, and there were not too many emotions of fear and unease.
From autumn to winter, the Great Zhou had lost two Saints in succession, and the Storms of the Eight Directions had suffered even more grievous casualties. If one also included Su Li and the Holy Maiden of the south who had left early, in just a few short years, the number of peak-level experts of the Human race had plummeted. But in the eyes of the common people, the Demons had suffered even greater losses from their internal strife, so how could they have the courage to invade the south?
There were people who did not think this way, such as the Pope who had already returned to the sea of stars. Besides them, those who knew the inside story also grew more and more nervous as time passed.
The Li Palace had already issued a public announcement, so the entire world knew that Chen Changsheng was the Orthodoxy's new Pope, even though he had still not formally succeeded the throne.
To the shock and confusion of the people, no one saw his figure at the Pope's funeral.
This was a very difficult matter to imagine, but both the Li Palace and the Imperial Court maintained their silence. There seemed to be some sort of tacit understanding between the two. What was this tacit understanding? Was it the agreement that the Pope and Shang Xingzhou had reached after a long conversation on the night that Wang Po and Chen Changsheng killed Zhou Tong? Or were both sides waiting for that moment to come?
The new year was approaching, a page was torn off the yellow paper, and the winter sun rose once more. Many things would change.
On that day, the Great Zhou Dynasty would formally change its name, and the young emperor's position would become unshakable. The Li Palace would hold a grand ceremony of succession, and the Orthodoxy would welcome a new master.
The young emperor and the young Pope were martial brothers.
Such a thing had never happened before in history.
This also meant that the current Emperor and Pope would both be Shang Xingzhou's students.
This was also something that had never happened before in history.
From every angle, this was the pinnacle of life that the people of the world could imagine. It was even unimaginable before it actually happened.
He had led the entire world in overthrowing the Tianhai Divine Empress's rule, predicted that he might even have participated in the Demon Lord's destruction, subdued the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets with a wave of his hand, and added to the fact that the two disciples he had personally taught would become the two people with the greatest authority in the secular world and in the divine world, even if Shang Xingzhou was not a god, he was still a legend.
Regretfully, there was no such thing as true perfection in the world. The fate above the starry sky would not permit such a thing to happen.
In the end, this problem still had to be resolved. No matter how incomprehensible people were, why Chen Changsheng wanted to oppose his teacher, no matter how incomprehensible they were, why Shang Xingzhou disliked, even loathed, this disciple that was in fact very popular … in short, this problem had to be resolved.
This was no longer a problem between master and disciple. It was now related to the fate of the entire Human race and even the entire world.
Just what would happen on the day of the new year? The Great Zhou Dynasty's first internal war?
The snowstorm continued to fall. The Grass Moon Hall, the Pure Cassia Palace, and the Institute of Moss were all dyed white. A lonely trail of footprints could be seen on the snow.
The streets outside the Li Palace were deserted, but an invisible energy constantly rippled between those famous stone pillars.
Whether it was the priests, the officials of the various halls, the teachers and students of the Six Ivies, or the twenty-thousand-some Orthodoxy cavalry, no one went out.
The Imperial Court maintained the highest level of vigilance in the various military camps of the capital. Several Divine Generals had even led the world's famed black-armored heavy cavalry back south from the snowy plains of the north and stationed themselves on the front line of Black Valley. If one were to calculate the distance, this terrifying flood of armored cavalry had actually left the Northern Army Office twenty days ago, and at that time, the Pope was still alive.
The mood in the capital was abnormally tense.
… …
… …
On the last evening before the arrival of the new year, the snowstorm was still falling, so much so that it could even be called violent.
This year, the capital was exceptionally cold. No one knew that a large part of the reason was that abandoned well not far from the Imperial City.
With great difficulty, the afterglow of the setting sun pierced through the clouds and snowflakes, landing on the palace walls and sprinkling down an extremely faint twilight.
Suddenly, an unimaginably cold Qi spread out from that abandoned well. Whether it was the withered leaves or the earth, everything was instantly frozen solid. Even the ice and snow seemed to be frozen once more in some inexplicable way, and even the twilight seemed to be frozen solid.
An extremely crisp sound came from the bottom of the well to the surface. It was already very weak, not even as clear as the sobbing that had followed it.
It was the crying of a little girl.
She had been crying all this time, but the emotions she conveyed were different from time to time. Sometimes it was especially happy and excited, sometimes it was especially sad and sad.
The soldiers on the Imperial City and the commoners in their residences all heard the girl's cries, but they did not know where they had come from. They could not find her no matter where they searched, and they were even more confused as to how a little girl could stay outside in such cold weather. How could she be alive, and how could she constantly cry? She cried from dusk all the way into the night without stopping.
After that day, besides the legend of the evil dragon, a new legend appeared in the area around New North Bridge.
The protagonist of this new legend was a child bride who had been killed by her heartless mother-in-law.
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