Chapter 883 — Gathering the Milky Way Before the Moon Palace

Within the Heaven Diagram, by day the stars dim and the river of stars gives no light; only the sun shines.

But at night, the sun in the star diagram is extinguished. " Shen Mu looked where she pointed. The sun's formation had now ceased to turn; it was a circular formation shaped like a portal, hollow within, and inside it stood a Palace of the Sun.

As he had guessed, this formation borrowed the light of the true sun, and so could give off light and heat. "The hole in the Heaven Diagram is here.

" Bai Qu'er came to the Palace of the Sun and led him inside.

"But this hole only appears when the sun formation is lit," she said with a smile. "Then we can fly out through it and see the real starry sky. " Shen Mu blinked.

"It is night now in Jingping. " Bai Qu'er murmured in assent.

"Once we light the sun, the moon and the sun will both appear in the night sky," Shen Mu went on.

Bai Qu'er murmured again, a look of regret on her face.

Shen Mu's face brightened into a smile. "Then let us do it! " Bai Qu'er cheered and flew swiftly to the very center of the palace, where there was a great crimson cloth, woven of some unknown material, embroidered with the pattern of a three-legged golden crow, something beneath propping it up.

Bai Qu'er pulled the cloth aside with force, revealing a stand, and upon the stand a palm print formed of exquisite rune patterns.

She pressed her palm to the pattern and looked at Shen Mu, hesitating.

"Are we really going to light the sun?

Won't it be too shocking to the world?

" Shen Mu laughed.

"The people of Jingping are long accustomed to it. As for shocking the world, a sun appearing at night cannot compare with the breaking of the Yuan Realm's seal. In these past years, the people of Jingping have seen heavenly calamities erupt, seen the Yong River turn into a river of heaven, countless gods and demons awaken, and the heavens appear in the sky.

Their endurance is stronger than we imagine. " Bai Qu'er set her heart at ease and stirred her vital essence.

A hum came from the stand, and then the humming flowed along the ground in all directions. Soon the formation runes outside the Palace of the Sun were lit, the runes turning crimson; the formation revolved and parted to all sides.

At this hour Jingping had not yet entered deep night; countless households still had their lamps lit, the lights of the cities shone all the brighter, and pedestrians still strolled the night markets. Yet suddenly, all at once, the sun rose abruptly in the sky, hanging in the vault of heaven, driving the night away in an instant! Not only that, but the moon was in the sky as well, and its light was in no way inferior to the sun's, dazzlingly bright. The people of Jingping were stunned, and the gods, demons, and demigods of Yuandu were stunned as well; who knew how many raised their heads and stared blankly at the sky.

In the Palace of the Sun, Bai Qu'er seized Shen Mu's hand and raced ahead, her laughter drifting back to him. "Hurry, let us slip out before the gods and demons come looking!

" Shen Mu's heart pounded wildly.

He followed her to the center of the sun formation, where there was a great sunspot, its dark blotch most unsightly. Bai Qu'er leaped with him into the dark blotch, her sleeves and skirts fluttering, brushing against Shen Mu's face.

Shen Mu raised his other hand to push aside the girl's skirts and sleeves, only to find that they had already leaped out of the sun formation, out of the Heaven Diagram, out of that false celestial realm. They were floating in the vast and boundless starry cosmos, the Heaven Diagram behind them of unknowable length and distance, and before them a great ball of fire drifting in the silent universe.

Immeasurably vast, beyond all imagining. Standing before this sun, they were as tiny as ants.

Bai Qu'er suddenly flew with him, a fleeting gleam, rising upward at unimaginable speed, and pointed in a direction. "Look over there!

" she laughed. Shen Mu looked where she pointed and saw the heavens, one after another, like gems inlaid beyond the Yuan Realm, and within those enormous gems were suns, moons, and stars, like bright points set in the gems, flickering in and out of being.

They flew past these enormous gems, and the world barriers, like invisible membranes, gently repelled them as they drew near. Bai Qu'er borrowed force from the world barriers to quicken her pace, and roamed the void with Shen Mu.

They flew away from that true sun, and Shen Mu looked up and saw another sun, dim, giving off a dark red light; then above this sun he saw yet another dark red sun.

"That is where Kaihuang's Thirty-Three Heavens once were. " Bai Qu'er roamed with him.

"Kaihuang built thirty-three worlds here, but those heavens have already perished, ruined. " She led Shen Mu past the first extinguished sun, and circling this sun, they saw an enormous galaxy.

"That is the eye of Heaven Lord; he should be able to see us!

" Bai Qu'er waved excitedly at the mass of stars.

Shen Mu waved excitedly at the galaxy too, so stirred that his face flushed red. On the Shenzi Continent, the Heaven Lord's clone gave a snort and said to Molten Lava Tubo, "I see the boy, and he is mightily pleased with himself.

" Molten Lava Tubo, watching Xiao Tubo excitedly thrust his great head into the Life-Slaying Cauldron with his backside sticking out, said, "As pleased as he is? " Shen Fengqing was inside the cauldron counting his spoils one by one, and did not hear what they were discussing. The Great Sun Star Lord spread his wings and rose, crouching over the Shenzi Continent, three claws gripping the vault of heaven like a great bat sprawled on a rooftop, greedily gazing at the world outside through Shen Mu's sight.

"That brightest sun just now is where I was born. The one and only divine sun of Yuandu!

" The Great Sun Star Lord murmured, "The place of my birth, the first and brightest cry of the crow.

. . I still remember pulling the sun as I ran across the sky.

.

. " Suddenly darkness fell before his eyes: Shen Mu had taken out the willow leaf and covered his own third eye, so that he could no longer see the scene outside.

"Bastard! Uncover it, uncover it at once!

" the Great Sun Star Lord cried.

"I want to see my homeland!

" Chi Huang Siwei pulled him down. "They are out there courting and making love; what business have you to make a fuss?

We have barely won a foothold, lodging here on sufferance; do not ask for more. " The Great Sun Star Lord shrank back his head.

"You are a lodger; I am a prisoner.

We are not the same. Tell me, what are they doing now, that they will not let us watch?

"