Heavenly Venerable Yu's coffin was well protected. On its surface, gleaming runes of Youdu revolved slowly around the casket in a quiet, secret dance — stillness steeped in mystery. On reaching this place, Shen Mu found his heart no longer surging; with calm composure he studied each rune, pondering the arcana within it. The runes were left by the Lord of Earth to protect Heavenly Venerable Yu's physical body. In truth, even without the Lord of Earth's runes, that body would never have aged or died, for Heavenly Venerable Yu was the only being ever to receive the blessings of all the ancient gods! All seven of the ancient Heavenly Venerables had been blessed by the ancient gods. Heavenly Venerable Ling, who had opened the realm of the Five Luminaries, received the blessings of the Five Luminary Star Lords and the Lord of Heaven, so that his body never aged and the five blessings shone bright upon him. Heavenly Venerable Hao, who opened the realm of the Six Harmonies, received the blessing of the Primordial Earth Mother, so that good fortune flowed upon him unceasingly and he knew neither old age nor death. Heavenly Venerable Yue, who opened the realm of the Seven Stars, received the blessings of the Great Sun Star Lord, the Grand Yin Star Lord, and the Lord of Heaven; his body, too, never aged, never growing decrepit or dying of illness. Heavenly Venerable Huo, who opened the realm of Heaven and Man, received the blessings of the Four Emperors, so that he lived long and saw far, and every misfortune turned to good fortune. Heavenly Venerable You, who opened the realm of Life and Death, received the blessing of the Lord of Earth, so that he never died, and his primordial spirit stood firm for all eternity. And Heavenly Venerable Yun, who opened the realm of the Divine Bridge, received the blessing of the Lord of Heaven, so that he never grew old, his primordial spirit pure and luminous. Though all six of these Heavenly Venerables had been blessed with immortality, each blessing was different in content. For instance, the Lord of Earth's blessing gave Heavenly Venerable You immortality and an eternally firm primordial spirit, yet living forever was not the same as never growing old — You did indeed age, because the Lord of Earth did not govern the law of an unaging, undying body; he could grant You an inexhaustible span of life, but he could not keep You young. The Lord of Heaven, in turn, blessed Heavenly Venerable Yun with agelessness, but he did not hold the secret of making the primordial spirit eternally firm, and could not bless Yun in that regard; he could only grant him a clear and lucid primordial spirit and the Heavenly Eye. But Heavenly Venerable Yu had received the blessings of all the gods! The blessings of the ancient gods were blessings of the very laws — let alone the fact that among them were the blessings of the Heavenly Emperor and the Empress. With all this, his primordial spirit should have been eternally firm, his body eternally young, immortal and indestructible. Yet it was in the veiled gallery of the little Jade Pool lodge that his body perished, his primordial spirit shattered; his spirit did not enter Youdu, the fragments did not enter the Tianyin Realm, and all his blessings failed entirely. The foul play concealed here could not help but provoke deep thought. That Heavenly Venerable Hao and the Nether Emperor had assassinated him was only the outer appearance; behind it might lie a far deeper contest. Whether the Heavenly Emperor and the Empress's own sister had a hand in it, no one could say. When Shen Mu thought over the deep-rooted causes hidden within, he could not help shivering several times. That assembly at the Jade Pool had seemed perfectly harmonious; even after Hao's assassination, the crowd had only been plunged into grief, with scarcely a ripple — all stillness. Yet who could have imagined what a monstrous murderous design lay beneath that seeming stillness? Only now, having seen the blessing of the Lord of Earth and reasoned certain things through, did he feel how terrifying it was! "Can Hao possibly prevail against such a Heavenly Emperor? The Longhan era split into three — in the end, who was the true victor?" He cast a sidelong glance at Heavenly Venerable You beside him. You had never once brought up the matter — he could not tell whether You knew nothing or was unwilling to speak. "Once Yu is revived, I must interrogate You to the very bottom of it!" Shen Mu lifted his hand, and the coffin cast from Buddha-primal red chrome split apart with a resonant clang; the coffin-lid flew some distance before settling lightly down without much sound. This was the Mansion of the Heaven-Equal Benevolent Prince, and the soul of the old Yin Courier's mother still dwelt within; Shen Mu did not wish to disturb the old lady. Under his power, Heavenly Venerable Yu floated in midair. A million years had passed, yet he was as before — time had left no mark on him. Just as when Shen Mu had encountered him at the Jade Pool, this young Heavenly Venerable was like a single tree of jade blossoms, warm and mild, faintly aloof. A million years had intervened; to Shen Mu it was but a few months past, and to him, too, it seemed the same. "I can summon his soul here in Youdu, draw his scattered soul-fragments to me. But the power of the Lord of Heaven cannot be borrowed within Youdu, so I must bring him back to the mortal world; only in the mortal world can I borrow the might of both the Lord of Heaven and the Lord of Earth to reforge his three souls and seven spirits." The old Yin Courier said in flustered alarm: "Can you truly do it? His soul has been shattered for a million years — such a long time..." Shen Mu smiled gently and said calmly: "Lady Tianyin had been dead at least four or five hundred thousand years, and did I not still bring her back? She was an ancient goddess; summoning her soul was difficult beyond everything, and it exhausted me enough to vomit blood. But when he died, Yu was at most a deity — summoning his soul will be much simpler." He lifted the willow leaf from his brow, and at once his divine treasury and demonic treasury merged as one; his cultivation of the divine path intermingled with his cultivation of the demonic path, and his magic power surged upward in successive leaps! Shen Mu set in motion the Soul-Drawing Art as he had reformed it; a primordial spirit sixteen zhang tall appeared behind him. His primordial spirit had grown vast and was now no ordinary thing, and with god and demon united in a single body he seemed like a small ancient god himself. From the primordial spirit's mouth came the cadenced demonic speech of Youdu, mingled with the gods' language — so abstruse and profound that even the old Yin Courier caught only a smattering. As Heavenly Venerable You, the old Yin Courier commanded immense and profound mastery of Youdu's demonic tongue and divine arts, but the language of the gods was something of a gap for him. The divine language of the ancient Heavenly Court was itself born from the god-speech of Xuandu, and both were born from the Lord of Heaven's Dao. Every art has its experts; because he had delved so deeply into Youdu's divine arts, his understanding of Xuandu's arts actually fell short of Shen Mu's. "Soul-Drawing Art?" The old Yin Courier listened for a while before realization struck him, and he cried out in surprise: "This is the Soul-Drawing Art — but you have changed it beyond all recognition!" Shen Mu's primordial spirit kept driving the Soul-Drawing Art while Shen Mu himself continuously circled around Heavenly Venerable Yu, above and below, left and right — his gait in the air was odd, yet as steady as if he trod level ground. His hands flashed as he cast one seal after another, turning into all kinds of runes stamped upon Yu's body. Compared with the awkwardness and peril of his soul-summoning for Lady Tianyin back then, he was now skilled and unhurried, with even enough