T/N: Don’t be fooled by the silly synopsis, this story is an epic! I won’t be updating it frequently until I finish one of my other translations (Prime Minister is almost done), but I had to get a foot in the door before one of the MTL sites did this masterpiece dirty! I hope you all enjoy this one as much as I did.

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Volume I: The Tree That Reached the Sky

Chapter 1 -Main Job and Side Job

Black. All different shades of black.

Feng Ye lifted his right foot and took a step forward.

The material under the soles of his feet felt soft like mud, or perhaps like rippling water.

He looked down to find that it was in the same shades of black as the rest of the scenery in his field of vision, and he couldn’t tell what was under his feet.

Feng Ye had not panicked when he abruptly fell into the pitch-black darkness, and wasn’t even very curious. Without trying to figure out where he was standing, he simply continued to walk onward as he had so many times before.

It was unknown how long he walked. In the darkness, he couldn’t see the sun, the moon, and or the stars, and couldn’t estimate the time.

At last, Feng Ye saw something else within the seemingly endless darkness.

It was a shadowy outline of a slightly lighter hue than the darkness that occupied every corner of his field of vision. The outline looked like the sapling of some kind of tree, its tender branches and leaves swaying in the darkness.

Feng Ye stopped moving forward and crossed his arms, somewhat bored as he waited.

“How long will it take for the next scene to come…..” Feng Ye estimated the passage of time by tapping his arm with his index finger.

As his finger tapped for the tenth time, the silhouette of a small figure appeared next to the sapling. He was pitch black, with short arms and legs, and only half the height of a normal person – like some kind of humorous character in a shadow puppet show.

But there were no desolate, melodious voices of opera singers here, nor a stage for a show. There was only the darkness, eerie and inexplicable.

A normal person would be somewhat panicked to have suddenly strayed into such a situation. Feng Ye, however, was entirely the opposite. He was as relaxed as if he was really here to watch a show, and a fairly boring show at that.

It couldn’t be helped. Anyone who watched the same scene countless times would grow bored of it.

He watched the little black figure busily tend to the sapling, using every possible way to water and fertilize it, but the sapling remained a sapling. Not to mention sprouting branches and a trunk, it didn’t even look like it had grown the least bit taller.

The black figure sat down on the ground dejectedly.

With his head drooping, although he was just a faceless black mass, one could imagine how sad the little figure was.

Feng Ye wasn’t a heartless person, but he had no intention of stepping forward to help him. Because he knew that the little figure in front of him would find a method to make the sapling grow.

And that method was……

The dejected little figure sitting on the ground suddenly jolted, as if he had thought of a solution. 

A sharp silhouette appeared on the short-legged, short-armed figure, like a blade.

In the next second, accompanied by the sound of rending flesh and blood, the blade pierced into the figure’s chest. Holding the handle of the blade in both hands, he tremblingly but firmly cut open his flesh.

The monotonous darkness was broken, and an abrupt touch of color bloomed in this dark play.

Red.

Pulsating, flowing red.

A subtle, rhythmic beating sound rang in his ears, and Feng Ye’s somewhat distracted expression gradually froze.

Although he had watched it countless times, he still couldn’t help being moved by the scene.

The figure tossed the blade away by the hilt and raised his hands high, bearing the fresh, beating heart he had just dug out of himself.

He knelt before the sapling and carefully, almost devoutly, buried his heart in its roots.

The figure held his breath. He ignored his bleeding wound and only stared at the sapling that would not grow, full of expectation and trepidation.

In the end, his hard work paid off. The sapling that had received a human heart underwent changes visible to the naked eye. It spread out its branches and leaves and rapidly sprouted a trunk.

The limbs at the top continued to branch out and grow leaves, reaching to the sky as the roots at the bottom grew thicker and thicker. They had only been as thick as the joint of a finger at first, but now, even dozens of adults couldn’t encircle their breadth. 

Compared to the long, hopeless wait before, it grew into a towering tree in nearly the blink of an eye.

It reached to the heavens in the truest sense. The ever-growing branches were about to break through the barrier between the two worlds, creating a passage between the heavenly and human realms via a giant tree.

“Jianmu…..” Feng Ye gazed up at the colossal tree that stretched to the heavens and murmured its name.

Jianmu, with the power to connect the two worlds. When fully grown, it would break the barrier between heaven and earth and open a passage from the human world to the heavens.

In fact, during that long period of time, the figure’s tireless care for the sapling had not been in vain. The sapling didn’t fail to grow at all, it just…..grew too slowly…..

So slowly that eight thousand years equated one spring season, and eight thousand more one autumn.

Compared to this, the lifespan of mortals was like that of a mayfly. Like the firefly and the bright moon, born in the evening and dead in the morning. They would never see the day when the sapling reached maturity.

But Jianmu, which should have taken tens of millions of years to grow into a towering tree, became such in just a short period of time.

Feng Yu looked at Jianmu’s roots with a frown. The heart was no longer visible. It had already merged with the tree.

Plants and trees had no hearts. Although Jianmu was no ordinary plant, it was still just a tree. It lacked self-awareness and could only passively absorb sunlight, rain, and nutrients from the soil, growing slowly.

But the figure gave his heart to Jianmu. The heartless plant gained a living, beating heart, and flowing within that heart was the desire and ambition unique to human beings.

Infinitely expanding ambition gave Jianmu the power to grow independently. It began to actively absorb nutrients and grow, shortening its growth time by tens of thousands of times.

Thump, thump, thump.

Jianmu grew inch by inch to the rhythm of a heartbeat, growing taller every time Feng Ye blinked. Its branches gradually rose higher than the mountains and the clouds, and finally, it connected heaven and earth.

This was…..the path to heaven!

There was a loud rumble.

Feng Ye followed the loud noise to gaze up at the sky, where a hurricane suddenly arose, carrying with it spiritual energy as vast as an ocean. The barrier between heaven and the human world had at last been broken by Jianmu.

Rich spiritual energy from heaven poured into the mortal world in a storm, forming a huge vortex in the air.

The small figure who’d lost his heart had a fist-sized hole in his chest, but he didn’t die. He and Jianmu had become one, connected in life and death.

The small figure cheered and opened his arms to the sky, feeling the spiritual energy spreading from heaven.

A second small figure appeared, and appeared to be friends with the hollow one. The hollow figure excitedly narrated his feat to the other.

The second small figure looked up at the towering Jianmu and exclaimed in amazement.

More and more people gathered. They climbed up Jianmu, trying to catch a glimpse of the real appearance of heaven.

They even built ladders on Jianmu for easy climbing, and ascended to the sky in an orderly manner.

However…..the good times didn’t last long…..

Feng Ye’s eyes narrowed. Those eyes had experienced darkness for so long and had become accustomed to the dimness, and the sudden glimpse of light was scorching and painful.

The little figures’ reactions were the same as his, and they gazed at the silhouette that had appeared from the spiritual storm at Jianmu’s peak in awe and fear.

This silhouette was ensconced in a bottomless glow. In this endless darkness, he was like a blazing sun that cut through the shadows, so dazzling that one dared not look directly at him. High in the sky, he peered down at the mortals ascending to heaven with neither sadness nor joy.

Humanity’s ambition to reach heaven had ultimately…..drawn the attention of the gods.

Thus…..the god raised his right hand, and light gathered there to form a sword – a blade sharp enough to cut through anything.

He swung his arm, and the sword slashed out. This sword seemed to contain the momentum of Pan Gu’s creation of the universe, unstoppable and irresistible.

The towering Jianmu tree was cut off at the waist. The lower half was still firmly rooted in the soil, but the upper half began to tilt and collapse.

The small figures climbing the path to heaven fell from the sky, their wails echoing across the land.

And another light appeared – a crimson light that burned everything.

The severed Jianmu began to burn as it fell. The fire started from the top, and the flames moved like venomous snakes along the contours of its branches until it reached the roots.

This towering Jianmu, which connected heaven and earth, burst into raging flames in the blink of an eye.

The fire danced in Feng Ye’s eyes. He did not look up at the sky, nor did he look at the god high above who had cut down Jianmu. He looked closely at the small hollow figure.

The small figure had fallen to his knees, writhing in pain.

There were no flames on his body, but the pain of the burning Jianmu was transmitted to him through the heart that had merged them into one.

The groan of Jianmu as it collapsed and disintegrated into flames, along with the cries of the figure, played out a mournful song.

The collapsed Jianmu hit the ground, raising a cloud of dust thousands of li high. Fire fell from the sky, and burning branches set alight the grass and trees on the ground. Flames spread out as far as the eye could see.

The world was engulfed in flames, and the god…..with the collapse of Jianmu, the passage closed once more and the god in the sky disappeared.

Fire gradually surrounded Feng Ye, but he didn’t move a muscle. Even when the burning heat nearly stung his skin, he didn’t flinch away at all.

Because this was just a dream. A recurring dream.

Feng Ye had known from the moment he stepped into the darkness that he had entered this dream again, and he also knew that this dream was about to end.

The fire burned for untold days and nights. Finally, after burning all of the life it could burn, the flames went out.

The world returned to darkness.

Once more, the dream was only an expanse of black.

Everything had turned to dust. Desire. Ambition.

In the darkness, only embers danced.

Feng Ye had stood there watching since he glimpsed the sapling, but now he took another step forward.

This step was difficult and slow, as if there was an invisible force of resistance hindering him. But Feng Ye still moved forward without hesitation. He wanted to find out why he kept having this dream.

The story told in this dream was incomplete. After the flames died, this absurd and irrelevant drama did not end. On the contrary, it was only the beginning of the show.

Feng Ye took three more steps forward. His legs were so heavy that there seemed to be boulders tied to them. He huffed and puffed, staring at the ashes Jianmu had become.

Jianmu was a tree that reached the sky, ten thousand mu high, and after it burned, it had turned into an immensely thick layer of ashes.

But even so, something still stubbornly broke through the ashes and emerged from the scorched earth. It was…..a new sapling…..

The sapling stretched out its branches and leaves, full of vitality.

Feng Ye’s heart suddenly stopped beating, and he stared at the sapling with its outreached branches and leaves. It was exactly the same as the previous one. 

But Jianmu had already become ashes in the flames, so what was this thing that had broken out of the ground?

Mysteriously and inexorably, he suddenly had a strong sense of foreboding, an instinctive warning carved deep in his soul.

Disaster was coming.

The soles of his feet immediately sank. A whirlpool formed on the ground that consisted of either mud or water, with the newly-sprouted sapling at its center. Darkness gathered and swirled beneath his feet like an abyss.

Feng Ye gazed past his feet, into the seemingly endless abyss. Chillingly, he got the sense that the abyss was alive, and was also looking back at him.

Or rather, that there was something beyond the abyss, peering at him from the darkness.

The shadows of the abyss were like tentacles as they tried to use his legs as ladders to climb up, but an invisible barrier blocked them from Feng Ye. No matter how fiercely the shadows bared their teeth and claws, they were unable to drag Feng Ye into the abyss.

Motionless, Feng Ye stared at the darkness beneath his feet and the sapling at the center of the dark vortex, trying to divine the meaning behind this scene.

However, Feng Ye’s thoughts were interrupted by an earth-shaking roar in his ears. He opened his eyes with a jolt.

The darkness vanished from his sight. What came into view was somewhat dazzling sunlight and…..a familiar young man’s face which exuded a youthful aura.

The young man standing beside the bed shouted into his ear: “Feng-shixiong, get up and sweep the floor!”

Feng Ye stared at the youth expressionlessly for a moment, gradually regaining his senses. He observed the angle of the sunlight and finally realized that he seemed to have overslept.

But there was nothing to be done. Each time he entered the dream, he would be unable to wake up until the entire process was completed.

Feng Ye half-raised his body on the bamboo bed. As his rising brought him closer to the young man, he couldn’t help but pause.

His nose twitched slightly. When he woke up with a fuzzy mind, he had used the adjective “youthful” when he saw this familiar face. And wasn’t it the smell of sweat all over his body that exuded that youthful aura?

The youth watched as his shixiong, who seemed to be getting up, laid down again. Feng Ye was already covering his nose and waving a hand in disgust before he was completely flat: “Fang Yang, you’re all sweaty. Quick, go and bathe.”

The youth named Fang Yang rolled his eyes and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He was holding a wooden sword in his right hand and a broom in his left.

Fang Yang lifted the wooden sword and explained: “Shixiong, can’t you see what time it is? I just came back from sword practice, but you’re still sleeping. You’ll be punished if you don’t sweep the floor.”

Feng Ye still didn’t remove the hand that was covering his nose, and muttered in a nasal voice: “Hurry and go bathe so that I can get up and sweep the floor.”

Fang Yang rolled his eyes again. He tossed the broom to the side of Feng Ye’s bed, then ran out with a thump, thump, thump, like a rabbit with limitless energy to vent.

Feng Ye lamented in his heart, “How good it is to be young,” then dragged his ‘old’ body, which was only two years older than Fang Yang, out of bed.

He walked out of the room with the broom in hand and looked up at the dazzling sunlight in the sky, stretching lazily.

With a series of cracking sounds from his joints, Feng Ye woke up completely after stretching his muscles.

He looked at the broom in his hand, then at the martial arts square not far away, which was littered with fallen leaves, and belatedly realized that something wasn’t right.

Although the dream was bizarre and absurd, it seemed to be warning of something. But Feng Ye had thought it over countless times without coming to a result. Right now, the most urgent thing was to sweep the floor as Fang Yang had told him to. 

After all, Feng Ye was only a junior disciple who was in charge of the sect’s miscellaneous chores, and whose main job was sweeping the floor.

As for investigating the cause of the dream and preventing the impending disaster, that was a side job to sweeping the floor.

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Table of Contents >> Chapter 2