"Agh!" Screaming, Tang Jie grasped his head and sat up.
He found that he had returned to that lively city.
He was sitting in a restaurant, and around him were Liu Qianyi, Na Shan, and the others, but he couldn't recall how he had gotten here.
The scene before his death was still playing out before his eyes, and the recollection of being pulverized under that finger made him shiver.
Just who did that finger belong to?
Why had they killed him?
Was this something he would inevitably experience in his pursuit of the Heavenly Dao?
He didn't find fighting Shi Wunian, the Blood River Lord, or even the Flame Celestial Sovereign to be weird, but that finger was inexplicable! It gave him a feeling familiar to the Dream Pearl Lady painting, but it left him utterly confused.
As he was wondering what was going on, Liu Qianyi's voice rang out next to his ear. "You're awake? Young Master Tang, what did you inquire about, and what was the end result?"
After some thought, Tang Jie replied, "I inquired about the Great Dao, and the end was a grisly death."
Liu Qianyi covered her mouth and chuckled.
"You?" Tang Jie asked.
Liu Qianyi rolled her eyes at him and didn't reply.
Another voice piped up, "You need to ask? Miss Liu must have inquired about her marriage, seeking a husband that suits her desires within the simulation formation!"
Hei Yan was the one who had spoken.
Liu Qianyi rolled her eyes at him, but she still didn't say anything. It seemed like Hei Yan's guess wasn't far off.
Tang Jie asked him, "And what about you?"
Hei Yan scratched his head and answered, "I've reached a bottleneck in my cultivation of the Charred Heaven Flame, so I put the question to the simulation formation and finally learned where the problem was. If I don't die here, I will be able to make some progress."
Liu Qianyi commented, "Using your one chance at future simulation on a single art is too much of a waste."
Hei Yan grinned. "I also know that it's rather wasteful, but the Immortal path is too long, and seeking the Dao is too difficult. Big Brother Tang tried to comprehend the Heavenly Dao, but what did he get? Only death."
Tang Jie nodded. "Hei Yan is right. The more far-off the object of your desire, the more indistinct things are, and the more unreal and unfathomable the future that is formed. I sought the Heavenly Dao, but all I learned was clouded in fog, and I don't even know how I died. If we really had to compare, I'm worse off than Hei Yan and his practicality."
Hei Yan giggled.
At this moment, Na Shan also opened his eyes, his expression grim. "I saw the simulated result of this battle."
"How was it?" everyone asked.
Na Shan replied, "We all died."
Everyone turned gloomy.
"How is it that we still lost even after all the Bloodguards died?" Hei Yan frantically asked. "He only has eight avatars left."
Na Shan shook his head. "I don't know, but I saw the Blood River Lord smugly laughing as he waved a sword, sending out countless rays of sword light. Under this sword, all of us were wailing, bleeding… dying!"
Tang Jie was startled. "You're saying you saw him using the Immeasurable Sword against us?"
Na Shan nodded.
How could this be?
Tang Jie's mind was reeling.
At this moment, another voice spoke. "How interesting! I saw an entirely different result."
It was Shui Yao.
Tang Jie turned to her, and she charmingly smiled. "I saw the heavens collapsing and earth churning as they were reversed. I heard the Blood River Lord crying out in indignation, saw the world being purged by fire… You're right in that Blood River has one final trump card, and you have one as well. I don't know what it is, but I know that you were fighting with him."
"What about the result?" Tang Jie asked.
Shui Yao shook her head. "I don't know. I was dead by then."
Everyone fell silent.
After a while, a representative suddenly asked, "Why is it that two people looking at the same thing saw a different result?"
Liu Qianyi replied, "It might not be a different result. There's a possibility that these are just different phases. And I said before that different choices can produce different results, so it's not strange for there to be differences."
"Then what sort of choice led to the difference?"
"I don't know…" Liu Qianyi trailed off. "There are too many unknowns. Maybe it's just an unconscious act like the raise of a hand or the wave of a head, a seemingly innocent smile, an inadvertent glance, a melancholic thought upon seeing the wind blow through the flowers. Na Shan and Shui Yao are two completely different people, and with all those differences, they would naturally see two completely different results."
"In other words, even if there were more people who looked at this battle, they might get completely different results, yet there's a chance that none of it could happen, right?"
"Yes."
"Then what's the point?"
Liu Qianyi stopped talking.
She also didn't have an answer to this question.
But she at least understood why her master had told her to only ask about cultivation and nothing else.
The matters of the world were just too vast and complicated, so easy to change that they were simply impossible to predict.
In contrast, cultivation was much simpler. It was no wonder her master had been able to cultivate a supreme charming art while she had only managed to comprehend the Dao of supreme love.
Liu Qianyi had no response to these doubts, but thankfully, Tang Jie spoke up for her.
"Of course there's a meaning. These effects cannot come about without a cause. To deduce the cause from the effect is the meaning."
"And what sort of cause can you deduce?"
Tang Jie smiled.
He took up a cup from the table in front of him and then threw out the water in the cup, splashing it onto the ground.
"The cup in the water is the cause, and the drops of water spilled out are the effect. While they all share the same cause, each resulting effect has minute differences. It is for this reason that going from cause to effect isn't very easy, and even the simulation formation will give a different answer for the same cause depending on the person. But if you work backward, from effect to cause, calculating from those countless spilled drops of water where the water came from, that's still possible."
He lightly waved his hand, and the water drops magically returned to the cup.
"I have now seen two effects, so I need more answers. Only then can I understand where the critical inflection point is," Tang Jie casually said. "So… is there anyone else besides Na Shan and Shui Yao who chose to look into today's battle? I need more clues. Once I have enough effects, I can find out the cause."
He looked around, but everyone silently shook their heads.
Tang Jie looked at Young Master Hua, who replied, "Like you, I sought the Heavenly Dao and failed, but I managed to obtain some enlightenment within the painting."
Tang Jie turned to Yiyi, who replied, "I saw Little Brother Bao'er… in that place."
Tang Jie was surprised. "You saw him?"
Yiyi earnestly nodded. "With you!"
"'In that place'?"
"In that place!"
Tang Jie understood.
He then looked to the others to learn what they had seen.
There were others like Na Shan and Shui Yao who had looked at today's battle, and their results were largely similar, with only minor differences.
The future was unpredictable, and even the simulation formation found it difficult to glimpse.
The answer was so absurd and incomprehensible that even Tang Jie was left baffled.
But their lives were at stake in this battle, and he couldn't afford to be careless.
He surveyed the room and saw that everyone was worried.
Some people were ashamed that entering the formation had made them forget about the most important thing, and others were sighing as they pondered how to beat the Blood River Lord.
The puzzling future had heaped another burden onto everyone's hearts, Na Shan's weighty words leaving all of them in pain.
It was at this point that Tang Jie noticed that there was still someone who hadn't said anything.
He looked over and spotted Zuo Quanming seated in a corner, his head lowered in silence.
Curious, Tang Jie asked, "What did you see? Why aren't you saying anything?"
Zuo Quanming shuddered at his question.
He looked up at Tang Jie and squeezed out an ugly smile. "N-nothing."
Tang Jie frowned. "If you say it's nothing, then it definitely must be something. There's no way you would say this if it had been about cultivation, so you must have observed today's battle. Why aren't you saying anything?"
Zuo Quanming shrank back. "It's really nothing."
Tang Jie began to lose his patience. "Stop messing around and cough it up already. Even if you saw all of us die, it's fine. It's only if you tell us that we can take precautions against it, right?"
Zuo Quanming thought it over for a long time before finally saying, "I… I saw you die."
There was stunned silence.
This was the most definitive future event they had heard so far.
And everyone understood how important Tang Jie's strength was to this battle.
Without Tang Jie, they had no hope of resisting the Blood River Lord.
If Tang Jie died, none of them could even think about surviving.
All of them were stricken by sorrow and grief.
But Tang Jie's brow creased, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Zuo Quanming. "Something's not right. If this was the case, why would you be so reluctant to say it?"
Startled, Zuo Quanming said, "I was worried about bringing down morale."
Is that so?
Tang Jie was even more suspicious.
Someone of Zuo Quanming's personality wouldn't be so cowardly over something like this!
He solemnly declared, "You. Are. Lying!"
Zuo Quanming cried out, "No, I'm not!"
Tang Jie suddenly grabbed Zuo Quanming by the neck and pressed him to the table. "Talk! What, exactly, did you see?"
Clang! He pulled out the Sovereign Blade and pressed it against Zuo Quanming's neck. "If you tell me one more lie, I'm cutting off your head!"
Zuo Quanming was aghast. He certainly didn't have the ability to regrow his head like the Blood River Lord. With his abilities, if this saber took his head, his life was probably done for. He wailed, "No! No! It's really nothing!"
"Talk!" Tang Jie roared, his voice thundering in Zuo Quanming's mind.
He finally shouted, "I'll talk! I'll talk! I saw… I saw…"
"What did you see?!"
Zuo Quanming took in a deep breath and finally said, "I saw me killing you!"
"What?" Tang Jie was taken aback.
Zuo Quanming fearfully replied, "I don't why either! I really had no thoughts about wanting to kill you, but I saw…
"Saw you dying to my sword!"
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