Chapter 506: Chapter 421: Grand Fortune

Silk Lady’s eyes flickered. She didn’t answer immediately, instead stating her condition, "You... let me go first, and then I’ll tell you."

"I can consider it..." Chen Li said, his expression unchanging. "But you tell me first!"

Silk Lady thought for a moment before saying, "I don’t know the exact details. But I overheard Master Chang Xiang mention something about buying land in the Western Heaven. The barbarians there love silk and porcelain, so those goods are more effective than actual gold and silver."

"Buy land in the Western Heaven?"

Chen Li’s gaze turned cold. "You’d better come up with a better lie. The countries of the Western Heaven are mostly barren, untamed wastelands thousands of miles from the Central Earth. Why would anyone buy land there?"

"Why would I lie to you?!"

Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, Silk Lady flared with anger and sneered, "It’s your own ignorance, your own limited worldview! Do you have any idea what the Great Cosmic Chronology is? Hah! I bet you don’t!"

’The Great Cosmic Chronology?’

Chen Li’s pupils contracted slightly. The sound of those four words sent a jolt through him.

"What is that?"

His voice remained calm, but turmoil stirred deep in his eyes.

Seeing that he seemed to be stumped, a smug look appeared on Silk Lady’s face. "Want to know? Fine. First, undo the seal you placed on my Divine Soul. Otherwise, don’t even think about getting a single word out of me!"

Chen Li looked at her in silence for a few moments, then slowly nodded.

"Alright."

"However, to undo the seal, my Primordial Spirit needs to enter your Divine Hall Acupoint. You must completely relax your Heart Spirit and not resist."

A flash of joy flickered in Silk Lady’s eyes. ’This little man is so easy to handle.’

She immediately did as told and resettled herself in the Grandmaster’s Chair, even adjusting her posture to appear more relaxed and cooperative. "Then get on with it," she urged. "Once it’s undone, I’ll be sure to tell you everything."

Chen Li wasted no more words. With a flicker of his will—

HUMMM...

A faint golden light flashed above his head. His Primordial Spirit emerged from his body, instantly sinking into the space between Silk Lady’s eyebrows.

Silk Lady’s Primordial Spirit sensed Chen Li’s entering her own and was inwardly delighted. But just as she was about to speak, she saw Chen Li’s Primordial Spirit clench its right hand out of thin air.

VMM!

Golden light swirled, and the Qiankun Ruyi Staff materialized in its palm.

The next moment, as Silk Lady’s Primordial Spirit watched in utter horror, Chen Li’s Primordial Spirit raised the long staff and, without warning, swung it straight down at her.

"You... what are you doing?! Stop!"

Her Primordial Spirit turned deathly pale as she screamed in terror.

She tried to struggle, but the countless, faint golden Order Divine Chains covering her body suddenly flared with a brilliant light, locking her Primordial Spirit firmly in place. She couldn’t even move a finger!

"No! Don’t you want to know..."

Her scream came to an abrupt end.

The Qiankun Ruyi Staff fell.

Her Primordial Spirit was instantly webbed with countless cracks. Then, with a SHATTER, it disintegrated completely, breaking down into innumerable fine particles that rapidly dimmed and faded away.

「In the cellar.」

Silk Lady’s body, which had been sitting upright in the Grandmaster’s Chair with a trace of smugness and anticipation, suddenly trembled. The expression on her face froze instantly.

The light in her eyes faded like a receding tide, leaving them empty and lifeless.

Her head lolled limply to one side. All signs of life were gone.

Chen Li’s Primordial Spirit returned to his body. His gaze swept calmly over Silk Lady’s lifeless form.

He stood up and walked to another corner of the cellar.

There, the Dust-Cleaning Slave still lay unconscious on a straw mat, his life force as faint as a candle flickering in the wind.

Chen Li extended two fingers and pointed from a distance.

The Dust-Cleaning Slave’s body stiffened slightly, and with that, the last spark of his life was extinguished.

Chen Li had gotten the information he wanted. Keeping them alive was not only pointless but would also create future problems.

As for the Great Cosmic Chronology that Silk Lady had mentioned before her death, Chen Li had not only heard of it, but understood it quite well.

The reason was simple: both the notes left behind by the Seven Kills Ancestor and the text of the *Sixteen-Character Plate Book* had emphasized this concept.

One Epoch contains twelve Conjunctions. One Conjunction contains thirty Fates. One Fate contains twelve Ages. And one Age is thirty years.

This system was used to calculate the great cycles of the heavens and the earth.

The book put forward an even more astounding viewpoint.

It’s not just people who have a Destiny; the heavens and the earth follow a destined path as well.

"When the calculations of the *I Ching* reach their limit, the world ends and begins anew. One might ask: Do the heavens and earth truly have an end and a beginning? The reply: If they can wax and wane, how can they not have an end and a beginning?"

It argued that everything in the universe followed the principle of "First, the Cycle; second, Destiny; third, Feng Shui," and that nothing could remain at the peak of its fortune forever.

For a person, a major cycle of fortune typically lasts twenty years.

The major cycle for the heavens and the earth, however, corresponds to the positions of stars within the celestial palaces.

The heavens have Nine Stars and the earth is divided into Nine Palaces. Each star and each palace governs one cycle of fortune. Together, they form one great cycle for the heavens and earth, lasting approximately three hundred and sixty years.

The saying, "When the epoch restarts, all creation is renewed," is an allusion to this very principle.

When he had first studied this theory, Chen Li had found it profoundly esoteric. The calculations were complex, and while he sensed profound truths within it, much of it remained beyond his comprehension.

Now, as he connected this theory with the dynastic histories his eldest son Chen Shouheng had brought back from the He Niu Martial Arts Academy, a glimmer of understanding began to form in Chen Li’s mind.

The Great Qi Dynasty, from its founding to the present day, had only lasted for three hundred and ten years.

In Chen Li’s past life, a dynasty lasting over three hundred years would have been considered remarkably long-lived.

But this was a world where the Martial Dao flourished!

Martial Artists possessed extraordinary power, and the strongest among them could influence the fate of a nation.

Chen Li was certain that the lifespan of a Dharma Realm expert far exceeded three hundred years.

With such powerhouses presiding over it, a dynasty should theoretically be able to last much longer.

Yet, looking back through the historical records of previous dynasties, not a single unified empire had ever surpassed the three-hundred-and-sixty-year mark.

This defied all common sense.

He had harbored doubts about this before, but without any leads, he had no way to investigate further.

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