Chapter 359 Tides
Lin Wan unconsciously curled the corners of her mouth into a smile. This transmigrator senior was actually quite interesting.
But as she listened—
"Holy crap..."
Her heart suddenly skipped a beat. Could this really be my past life?
But on second thought, the old man had clearly stated that the loser loses everything.
According to that statement, that Saint Master should already be—
"In that case," Lin Wan suppressed her smile and looked straight at the old man. "Shouldn't that Saint Master be dead by now? And wasn't the Lower Realm already merged by the Upper Realm?"
She frowned slightly. "Why are the two realms still separated now? Why do you and Heavenly Saint Demon both firmly believe you can see him again?"
The old man suddenly froze in place.
His cloudy eyes trembled violently, and his withered fingers unconsciously gripped the front of his clothes.
Veins bulged on his forehead, and bean-sized beads of sweat rolled down the gullies of his wrinkles.
His lips opened and closed several times, but only emitted "he-he" gasps, as if his throat were being choked by invisible chains.
"I... I..."
The old man's knees suddenly went weak, and he stumbled to hold onto the stone table.
His knuckles turned white from excessive force, and the accumulated dust on the table was shaken up, forming a hazy mist barrier in the glow of the green lamp.
Lin Wan saw the blood vessels at his temples beating frantically, and bloodshot threads crawling across his cloudy sclera.
The old man suddenly fell to his knees, clutching his head with both hands.
"But some things... cannot be forgotten... absolutely cannot be forgotten..."
His voice grew lower and lower, finally turning into sobbing.
His hunched body curled into a ball.
"Forget it, it doesn't matter if you can't remember." Lin Wan hurriedly comforted him, afraid he would just think himself to death like this.
Sure enough, hearing her words, the old man's cloudy eyes suddenly became blank, and his withered fingers unconsciously rubbed the corner of his clothes.
Just as Lin Wan was getting a bit impatient, he suddenly spoke:
"Right, the Saint Master... once left three things."
The old man stood up tremblingly, circling inside the stone house with a hunched back.
He opened the broken wooden box in the corner, lifted the straw mat on the bed, and finally even started tearing his own ragged clothes.
"A pen, a book, and a sentence."
He muttered to himself, his withered fingers groping at his chest for a long while before finally carefully pulling out a thumb-sized jade slip emitting a faint light from his inner lining.
The jade slip was only the size of a thumb, covered in fine cracks on its surface, yet it still emitted a faint spiritual light.
The old man held it carefully, as if holding the most precious treasure in the world.
"As for the other two..." The old man shook his head. "I don't know where they are. But this sentence is right here."
His calloused thumb gently stroked the cracks on the surface of the jade slip.
Lin Wan stared at the jade slip, and a strange sense of familiarity suddenly surged in her heart.
This feeling was exactly the same as when she first touched that book and that pen.
"That sentence..." The old man handed the jade slip to Lin Wan. "The Saint Master said that only when the true him appears can it be opened."
Lin Wan took the jade slip, and her spiritual consciousness was about to probe into it when—
Outside the stone house, the long call of a giant whale faintly came.
The sound penetrated the thick walls of the whale's abdomen, echoing within the crystal-like stone house.
"What is happen..."
Before she could finish her words, the stone house suddenly shook violently, and dust from the roof fell rustling down.
Lin Wan's figure flashed, and she instantly supported the stumbling old man. "What is going on?"
The old man's face was ashen, and his withered fingers grabbed her sleeve tightly.
"It is the tide... the tide is coming!"
His voice was distorted by terror. "This is impossible... it has only been five hundred years since the last tide..."
"What is the tide?" Lin Wan asked with a frown, simultaneously feeling rhythmic vibrations coming from beneath her feet, as if some gigantic creature was awakening.
The old man pointed tremblingly toward the sky above. "It is time for this old whale to feed..."
As soon as his words fell, the entire stone house suddenly tilted.
The tea set on the table slid to the ground and smashed to pieces. The old man steadied himself with a stagger, his voice hoarse.
"When you entered, did you see a giant octopus fighting with the old whale?"
Lin Wan nodded. "I saw it."
"They have been fighting here beneath the Return to Ruins for who knows how many tens of thousands of years."
The old man held onto the wall, a look of reminiscence floating in his eyes.
"Usually, they are evenly matched, and neither can do anything to the other. But every thousand years, a wisp of moonlight leaks from above the Return to Ruins..."
Suddenly, a deafening whale cry came from outside the stone house, and the sound waves buzzed against the walls.
The old man had to raise his voice. "That wisp of moonlight can cause the old whale's strength to surge, enough to tear off one or two tentacles of the giant octopus as food!"
As soon as his words fell, the world spun again.
Lin Wan grabbed the old man by the collar and held him steady. "So this vibration now is..."
"It is the old whale preparing to feed!" The old man looked toward the sky in terror. "But it clearly shouldn't be now..."
Lin Wan suddenly remembered something, and her expression turned strange. "That giant octopus you mentioned..."
A rare awkward smile appeared on her face. "When I came in just now, I seem to have helped the old whale by killing it."
"Then what happens when it feeds?" Lin Wan asked.
The old man smiled bitterly. "To it, it is just a full meal, but to this heaven and earth..."
Before he could finish his words, a deafening roar came from the distance, as if the entire world was trembling.
"The water of the Return to Ruins will pour back in," the old man's voice tightened. "It is no different from a change of heaven and earth."
He pointed at the stone house beneath their feet. "I also only make preparations once every thousand years."
"What preparations?"
The old man's withered fingers knocked on the ground. "This stone house is actually the cabin of a ship; the hull is right underneath."
Lin Wan scanned with her spiritual consciousness and indeed discovered a broken stone ship beneath the stone house.
The hull was covered in cracks, and the keel was almost broken, as if it had experienced countless impacts.
"What difficulty is there?" She laughed lightly.
As an Immortal Venerable who had dived into the Return to Ruins, this water of the Return to Ruins was merely higher pressure to her.
However, the old man before her obviously could not withstand the scouring of the Return to Ruins water.
Lin Wan raised her hands, and immortal yuan surged out like a tide.
The entire stone house, along with the broken ship below, suddenly rose from the ground with a boom, as rubble and dust fell rustling.
"Rise!"
Immortal light flowed from her fingertips, and the broken hull rapidly repaired under the coverage of immortal yuan.
The broken keel reconnected, the shattered planks healed as if new, and even the mottled runes lit up one by one, radiating an ancient luster.
Outside, the rumbling sound of water drew nearer, as if ten thousand wild horses were galloping.
Finally—
"Boom!"
Endless water from the Return to Ruins poured down like a heavenly river, instantly filling the entire space.
At the very moment the giant wave struck, the last crack in the stone ship was also sealed by immortal light.
It transformed into a stream of light and rushed into the turbulent current.
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