System Granted Me Immortality; I Outlived Everyone

Chapter 39: The Courage to Pursue Longevity, Meeting Third Senior Brother Again

Chen Changsheng’s words left Zuo Xinghe utterly stunned.

“Sir, you… how could you be The Undertaker?”

“Why shouldn’t I be The Undertaker? Do not forget my trade is in coffins, and I tend to the full rites of the departed.”

“I gather the fallen and return them to the earth. Is it so strange I bear the title of The Undertaker?”

Zuo Xinghe found his tongue tied, unable to form a rebuttal.

Because as bizarre as the statement sounded, a cold logic bound the words together flawlessly.

A faint smile touched Chen Changsheng’s lips. “When confronted with the unknown, living beings invariably weave tales, painting truths in shades that best serve their own desires.”

“Passed from tongue to tongue, the true shape of history is ground into dust.”

“To sift truth from myth, one must quiet the mortal heart and gaze directly upon the essence of the world.”

“Only then can you glean the ancient realities from the faintest of lingering traces.”

With those parting words, Chen Changsheng summoned his flying sword and stepped off the massive warship into the void.

Watching him depart, Zuo Xinghe shouted to the wind, “Sir, where are you going?”

“I have no talent for slaughter. I shall leave the shedding of blood to others.”

“The Xuanwu Kingdom is mighty, but the Night Moon Country will not fall in a single breath. I have funeral rites to attend to; I will return when the dust settles.”

By the time the final syllables reached Zuo Xinghe’s ears, Chen Changsheng was already a speck against the horizon.

As the emptiness swallowed the figure, Zuo Huang materialized quietly beside his son.

Staring into the distant clouds, Zuo Xinghe hesitated before asking, “Father Emperor, why did you let him leave?”

“Do you not fear he will never return?”

Zuo Huang spoke with a tranquil indifference. “You possess a sharp mind, but your eyes have not yet seen enough of the world.”

“More accurately, you cannot yet weigh the true measure of a man’s soul.”

“If the day comes when you can see through the depths of Chen Changsheng, you will finally be worthy of ruling the Xuanwu Kingdom.”

“It is merely a pity that my mortal coil wanes. You must tread the path ahead on your own.”

A heavy sorrow clouded Zuo Xinghe’s gaze.

“Father Emperor, must you truly step into the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land?”

“Surely, the Heavens possess other Dao that can mend your waning lifespan.”

Looking upon his son’s desperate confusion, Zuo Huang let out a low, weary laugh.

“You mirror me too perfectly. Centuries ago, I stood exactly where you stand.”

“Bowing your head to seek wisdom, yet secretly harboring disdain for the Heavens themselves.”

“In my vibrant youth, I believed my Qi could sunder any obstacle, and the inevitable decay of flesh meant nothing to me.”

“I thought to live was to stand paramount among mortals, and to die was to reign supreme among the spectral lords.”

“To burn brightly in life, and to extinguish with peerless grace. Lingering like a withered husk was an abomination to my pride.”

“Yet, after breathing the spiritual aura of this realm for over two thousand autumns, my Dao heart shifted.”

Zuo Xinghe remained silent, bowing his head to the deck, offering no judgment.

Zuo Huang smiled knowingly and pressed on.

“Among all the princes, you are the one who despises me the most.”

“You look upon the Emperor who once crushed empires and see only a coward clinging to embers. You believe your father dares not step into the coffin.”

Thud!

Zuo Xinghe’s knees slammed heavily against the wooden floorboards.

Zuo Huang paid the gesture no mind, his voice drifting like the autumn wind.

“Your assessment is correct, yet simultaneously flawed.”

“Correct, because your youthful blood dictates you must think this way.”

“Flawed, because you grossly underestimate the weight of true eternity.”

“Mortal poets praise devotion with oaths of ‘until the oceans run dry and the mountains crumble into dust.'”

“To their brief, flickering lives, mountains are eternal, and the abyss is unfathomable.”

“But when you stand long enough to watch a monolithic peak weather into fine grit, and witness an endless ocean bake into a vast plain of ten thousand miles.”

“Only then do you comprehend that Time is the absolute executioner of all under the Heavens.”

“Its grinding wheel shatters everything, even the very Laws of Heaven and Earth we mistook for immutable truths.”

“You believe stepping into the grave requires bravery. You do not understand that staring into the abyss of oblivion, and still choosing to claw toward longevity, requires a far more terrifying resolve.”

“Were you seated upon the Dragon Throne, enduring my eons, would you possess the fortitude to seek the eternal Dao as I do?”

A heavy silence crushed down on Zuo Xinghe as he weighed his father’s words.

After a long span of time, he forced the words out, syllable by agonizing syllable.

“This son… lacks such fortitude.”

“Heh heh heh.”

“A lack of such terrifying resolve is a blessing in disguise. It grounds your destiny in stability.”

“If the Heavens permit it, you must tether Chen Changsheng to your court.”

Zuo Xinghe furrowed his brow.

“Why?”

“Because Chen Changsheng holds an essence within him that eludes even me.”

“A decade past, you tempered yourself in the Demonic Beast Mountains and were drawn from the jaws of death by his hand.”

“In truth, my shadow never left you; your cultivation was merely too shallow to perceive my presence.”

“I heard every breath, every spoken word exchanged between you two. In that desolate mountain, my curiosity regarding this peddler of coffins was born.”

“I swept my Divine Sense over him for ten years. A decade is but a fleeting snap of the fingers for those walking the Dao, yet enough time for the aura of any man to shift.”

“Yet ten autumns withered, and the Chen Changsheng of today mirrors the man of the past with terrifying exactness.”

“It is as though the grinding wheel of Time finds no purchase on his bones.”

“Those who cultivate the Dao hunger for anomalies, for only chaos and disruption can shatter a Bottleneck.”

“But an empire demands absolute stillness. Only an unshakable foundation guarantees endurance.”

“I sit as the Emperor of the Xuanwu Kingdom, but my marrow belongs to the Dao. My hour to seek chaos has arrived.”

“Your path is distinct. You have centuries left to tread, and so you must anchor yourself in absolute stillness.”

“With Chen Changsheng standing at your back, the treacherous road to dominion will flatten before you.”

Zuo Xinghe hesitated, the words heavy on his tongue. “But Chen Changsheng’s eyes hold not a sliver of lust for mortal authority.”

“That is a puzzle for your reign. I cannot pave every step of your ascent. A true sovereign must forge his own chains to bind his subjects.”

Leaving those words hanging in the biting wind, Zuo Huang turned his back and stepped into the void.

Left to the silence of the warship’s deck, Zuo Xinghe remained kneeling, his brows locked in deep, heavy contemplation.

……

Shangqing Temple.

Li Jinshui lay crumpled upon the cold earth, the dregs of his life essence slipping away. Right beside his withered frame gaped a freshly turned, rectangular pit.

The light in his single remaining eye had already clouded into a milky, unseeing fog.

The crisp, rhythmic crunch of boots against fallen leaves broke the suffocating silence. Li Jinshui, hovering on the brink of eternal sleep, convulsed and gasped out a ragged breath.

“Junior Brother… is that you?”

Looking down at the shattered, grotesque ruin of the man who was once his unrestrained and peerless Third Senior Brother, Chen Changsheng pressed his lips together. His voice carried the quiet gravity of a falling leaf.

“Third Senior Brother. I am here.”

At the sound of that cold, familiar cadence, a fractured, bloody smile stretched across Li Jinshui’s face.

“I knew the wind would bring you… for your word is heavier than the mountains.”

With methodical, gentle hands, Chen Changsheng reached down and hoisted the broken man’s shoulders.

“Senior Brother, your breath is fading. Let me dress you in your burial robes while there is still time.”

“Rigor will set into the joints once your flesh cools. Changing you then… makes for a difficult funeral.”