Chapter 24: Immortality (Official spoilers ahead!)

I watched Empress Wu standing by the window, lost in the depths of her memories. Even as an empress of unparalleled stature, she was, in the end, only a mortal. Faced with power—supreme, absolute power—she was as susceptible to its temptation as any other.

"What happened after you obtained the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual?" I asked, looking at her back.

"At the time, the Empress was worried that Yuan Tiangang was too upright and loyal—unlike Li Chunfeng, who was tactful. She feared he might leak secrets about her future, so she ordered me to raid his home that very night and leave no survivors," Shangguan Wan'er replied, taking up the conversation.

"You... you killed... Yuan Tiangang?!"

"Yuan Tiangang was a man who had long since peered into the secrets of heaven. By the time I arrived with my men, he had already vanished with his entire family," Empress Wu said, her voice low and steady. "Wan'er only brought back a letter addressed to me. In it, he bluntly stated that I was destined to reach the pinnacle of power, so there was no need to force the future. He urged me not to obsess over the mysteries of the book. Although he surrendered the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual, he took something else with him."

I looked up, asking in surprise, "What did Yuan Tiangang take?"

"The necklace you are wearing right now!"

I froze, looking down at the Eight-Dragon Pearl-Holding necklace draped around my neck, and exclaimed in shock, "This necklace?! This necklace... it belonged to Yuan Tiangang?"

"The necklace you are wearing is called the Nine-Dragon Pearl-Disk. In truth, the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual is not just a book; it is a book and a piece of jade, two halves of a whole that cannot function without each other," Shangguan Wan'er added calmly.

"How could this necklace be related to the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual?" I was still confused.

"The manual is known as the art of seizing the creation of heaven and earth. It is the supreme treasure of the Five Arts of Taoism, regarded as the study of emperors. It is the highest level of secret knowledge within the Five Arts, consisting of forty-nine chapters. It records the essence of Taoist methods, geomancy, physiognomy, fortune-telling, and medicine. Furthermore, it contains the art of immortality and methods to predict the future. Only by mastering it can one understand the heavens and the earth, achieve eternal life, and foresee what is to come," Empress Wu said, turning back with a faint expression. "The Nine-Dragon Pearl-Disk conceals the essence of these Five Arts. If one can grasp its mysteries, one can master the secrets of the Five Arts entirely. Moreover, only the person who realizes the profound truth of the Eight-Dragon Pearl-Holding can truly comprehend the mysteries of the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual."

"That's not right. You said this necklace is the Nine-Dragon Pearl-Disk, but there are only eight dragons on mine. Where is the ninth?"

"You are the ninth dragon!" Empress Wu's words were startling.

"Me?!"

"The Nine-Dragon Pearl-Disk is a psychic ancient jade. In the arts of He and Luo, nine is the number of supreme status. With only eight dragons, it is merely an ordinary piece of jade in the hands of an average person. But once the jade finds its master, the ninth dragon takes its place, and the true meaning of the Nine-Dragon Pearl-Disk is revealed."

Still struggling to grasp the mystery, I frowned and asked, "But how does the jade know who its master is?"

"The master of the world is the True Dragon, the Emperor! When an emperor drips their blood onto the Nine-Dragon Pearl-Disk necklace, the hidden secrets are revealed." Empress Wu’s gaze fell upon the necklace on my chest. "Yuan Tiangang knew I would soon become the Emperor. He knew that once I obtained the manual and, upon ascending the throne, dripped my blood onto the necklace, I would surely decipher the book's secrets by possessing both."

"So... even though Yuan Tiangang handed over the book, he kept the necklace," I realized, nodding in sudden enlightenment.

"Don't you find it strange? Given your age and experience, it should be impossible for you to have achieved such profound mastery in metaphysics," Shangguan Wan'er said, watching me calmly. "Qiunuo returned and told me you possess the destiny of an emperor. If I am not mistaken, you must have accidentally dripped your blood onto this necklace when you were a child, unintentionally activating the Nine-Dragon Pearl-Disk and granting you this unparalleled metaphysical insight."

I felt bewildered. I took the necklace off and held it in my hand. It was just as Shangguan Wan'er had said; since I could remember, I had possessed an extraordinary talent for metaphysics. Everything I knew had been self-taught. Thinking of this, I couldn't help but be astonished that the ordinary necklace I had worn my whole life was so miraculous.

"Without the necklace in your hand, even having the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual would be useless. I ordered a secret search across the country for Yuan Tiangang, but until the day I abdicated, I never saw him again," said Empress Wu.

"Since you never obtained the necklace, then... how did you... live until now?"

"I was never interested in the Taoist arts recorded in the manual. I only wanted to use it to predict the future. If I knew what was to come, I could control the fate of the world and remain invincible. But without the necklace, the manual was an unreadable heavenly script," Empress Wu sat back in her chair and said slowly. "The one who truly discovered the secrets within was not me, but Wan'er."

Shangguan Wan'er poured a cup of tea for Empress Wu and said peacefully, "There is a peculiar section of text in the latter part of the book. The Empress gave it to me to study, but no matter how I read it, it made no sense. It was as if the characters were intentionally jumbled so that no one could understand their meaning. I remained very attentive to this passage."

I drank my tea and listened quietly as Shangguan Wan'er continued.

"Later, Li Chunfeng visited the Empress and mentioned, quite by chance, the idea of setting up a Feng Shui Eight Trigrams formation in the Empress's bedchamber. I drew inspiration from that. Since the manual is a Taoist treasure, could this text be related to the Eight Trigrams? I rearranged the text according to the eighty-one changes of the Eight Trigrams, and to my surprise, I cracked the secret and obtained a formula for an elixir."

"An elixir?"

Shangguan Wan'er nodded, holding her teacup. "The manual is known as a book that seizes the creation of heaven and earth, so I assumed the formula must be extraordinary. I ordered it to be secretly refined and presented to the Empress."

I began to understand most of it by now and said calmly, "You didn't know what the elixir would do, Aunt Qing, and you couldn't risk giving it to the Empress, so... you tested it yourself!"

"No, the Empress had the palace maids test it. But the matter was of such great importance that I feared the news would leak, so I took the elixir myself."

Empress Wu looked at Shangguan Wan'er with a gentle, apologetic gaze. "You were always too earnest. If you hadn't taken that pill back then... alas, you have suffered."

"It is my blessing to have accompanied you for a thousand years. To this day, I have never regretted it," Shangguan Wan'er said with a faint smile.

I took a deep breath, lost in thought. "Besides the Five Arts of Taoism, the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual contains records of immortality. It must be that the elixir formula you deciphered, Aunt Qing, was exactly that—the art of immortality!"

"After Wan'er took the elixir, I noticed over the next three years that she was growing younger. She was radiant, and her skin became as delicate as an infant's. I slowly guessed the purpose of the elixir," Empress Wu’s prayer beads stopped moving. "Immortality... something so many dream of. As an emperor, who wouldn't want to reign for ten thousand generations? So, I took the elixir as well. I never expected... that I would live until now!"

I suddenly looked up, my eyes filled with anticipation. "Since you and Aunt Qing are immortal, and you have kept the Three Autumn Calligraphy and the Chuigong Collection with you, does that mean... the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual is also with you?"

"Silly child, if the book were still with me, I wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to have you look for it."

"How could the manual not be with you?"

"For the first few years, I was truly happy. I possessed supreme power and eternal youth—the two things people dream of most. I felt my life was complete," Empress Wu sighed. "But as time passed, my suspicions grew deeper. I feared others would discover my secret. Since I couldn't master the manual, and I feared someone else might find it, I originally thought of burning it."

"And then?" I asked urgently.

"I never had the courage to burn such a peerless book. I hid it safely in my bedchamber. In the first year of the Shenlong era, I was assassinated in my chambers. Though I was unharmed, I soon discovered that the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual was missing. Because of the book's nature, I kept the matter secret. It was for this reason that I feared the secret would leak, so Wan'er and I staged a palace coup for the eyes of posterity. After I abdicated, I claimed to have died of illness, and we retreated into the world."

"The assassin was after the manual. The only person who knew you had it was Yuan Tiangang. Could the assassin have been him?"

"It wouldn't be him. Yuan Tiangang respected the secrets of heaven and knew that the will of heaven could not be defied. Killing me would be an act against heaven; he would not do that. Besides, with the Nine-Dragon Pearl-Disk in his possession, he had no need to risk stealing the book."

Shangguan Wan'er nodded and continued, "The Empress and I lived in seclusion, witnessing the rise and fall of several dynasties. We always wanted to retrieve the manual. Eventually, it fell into the hands of Zhu Yuanzhang, but he could never grasp its profound mysteries. Even on his deathbed, he was troubled by the manual. Unable to bring himself to destroy it, he ordered it to be hidden within the Ming Fourteen Tombs, hoping that a future descendant might decipher it and sustain the Ming Empire for ten thousand generations."

I realized then why they knew so much about the Ming Fourteen Tombs.

"Find the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual and bring it to me. This book has one more use for Wan'er and me!" Empress Wu said, fiddling with her beads.

"You..."

"Do not worry that I have any further ambitions. Thousands of years have passed; what is there left for me to hold onto? It is just that over these millennia, having seen the vicissitudes of life and the depths of human nature, Wan'er and I have experienced too much. Having seen so much, I have come to understand more. I am tired!" There was a sorrowful plea in Empress Wu's gaze. "I am weary of watching those around me grow old, weary of watching the children I raised die before my eyes. I do not wish to see Qiunuo meet the same end. I just want to fall asleep and never wake up again!"

I reflected on Empress Wu's words, slowly beginning to understand her state of mind. The pain of immortality lies in enduring more of the world's grief and possessing too many painful memories. When one tires of it all, immortality becomes an endless torture.

"Since the book contains the art of immortality, there must be a way to break it. This is another reason we asked you to find the Nine Heavens Hidden Dragon Manual," Shangguan Wan'er added earnestly.

"I will definitely bring the book to you!" I said without hesitation.