Chapter 983: I'm back

The hybrid construct named 'Li Qi' witnessed his own past, his tormented spiritual world.

However, 'Li Qi' felt neither self-pity nor lingering regret.

Instead, 'Li Qi' smiled faintly, like someone recalling childhood hardships, without any dissatisfaction.

All the suffering of the fragments, seemingly fruitless pain, was merely a small price paid for the arrival of 'Li Qi'.

Suffering occurred, but the entire past was just, sweet, and beautiful because of 'Li Qi's' arrival.

'Li Qi's' arrival compensated for all the pain previously endured by the 'fragments'.

'Li Qi' was the paradise the fragments yearned for.

In the fragments' limited lives.

Zhou Fang, or Xiao Chongqi, along with their peers in the Universe, would continue to advance at this moment, refining 'Li Qi's' understanding of the Universe to achieve perfect insight.

How should one describe Li Qi at this moment?

A perfect spiritual body?

No, he was not a spiritual body.

Li Qi's current state was indescribable, almost identical to Taiyi; anything used to describe him would be inaccurate.

He should rightfully be a spiritual body, because his material existence was insufficient to describe him, but... there was no reason to call it a "spiritual body," yet not calling it a "spiritual body" was also wrong.

Because, whatever Li Qi was at this moment, it contained only more than spirit.

Its meaning would only exceed any meaning of Mortal language.

From the human level, even the cosmic intelligence level, this "more" made one unable to see clearly, made one suffer, was an awe-inspiring mystery, making one feel profound respect.

"How do you feel now?" Taiyi asked Li Qi.

Li Qi sighed: "To be honest... not very good."

Li Qi looked at himself.

As 'Li Qi', he could see the tormented individuals within him, but in Li Qi's view, they were also 'Li Qi', 'Li Qi' standing at such a height.

These weak, hazy existing bodies, which had contributed their dull, sorrowful existence to create 'Li Qi'.

Li Qi couldn't describe this feeling, it was as if he had sacrificed himself for himself, and then grieved for himself.

He was still not used to this magnificent posture.

But... his Second Grade was completely established; Li Qi was now a genuine Second Grade.

An eye suddenly opened on Li Qi's forehead.

It was an eye of the Heavenly Demon, now belonging to Li Qi, containing more than fifty wisps of True Knowledge.

All the True Knowledge combined...

Li Qi finally understood.

Once, Li Qi sought an answer for all things, which was the Ultimate Great Dao; everything revolved around the Ultimate Great Dao, and the Ultimate Great Dao was the answer to everything.

But later, he discovered that acknowledging an answer for all things was to deny the foundation of their existence, thereby denying their reality, so he rejected this, leading to the Dao contention and collapse of his Inner World.

After that, he saw 'Emptiness'.

The World Honored One Tathagata's nirvana and the Heavenly Demon's choice made him feel that the world seemed meaningless again; everything ultimately seemed to have an unavoidable existence of 'suffering', making further entanglement and struggle unnecessary.

Emptiness was indeed a very good answer.

Finally, he chose to witness what the so-called 'Emptiness' was with his own eyes, so, at his Master's suggestion, he entered Reincarnation.

And now, the answer was already clear within Reincarnation.

All things are self-generated without a creator. He said, "Above, one knows there is no creator; below, one knows things are self-created." Things do not require anyone's effort; they become that way by themselves. A thing becomes what it is because it is "not dependent on the Dao externally, nor on itself internally," fundamentally there is no true essence to speak of.

But, 'natural' itself still exists, only this natural itself is not the 'true essence' of all things; all things have no essence, and natural is composed of all things.

All things are actually self-sufficient, or rather, in Perfection, so there is no mutual restraint or interdependence between them.

Therefore, this also brought about a problem.

According to this statement...

Li Qi, and all his fragments, also had no inheritance relationship.

If the Ultimate Great Dao does not exist, all things are at ease.

Then, the relationship between Li Qi and his fragments would be the same; Li Qi would no longer be the source of the fragments, and the fragments could exist independently. This answer led to Li Qi's downfall.

However, in the end... Taiyi swallowed Li Qi into the Ziwei Star, showing him another possibility.

This was also Taiyi's 'preaching', wasn't it?

The answer Taiyi gave was: don't pursue convenience anymore.

Weak lives like Li Qi, who grew up from the Mortal world, have a habit of summarizing and generalizing by subtraction, constantly reducing various things to simpler forms for easier grasp.

This is easy to understand; Mortal minds cannot hold so much, so they prefer to abbreviate things, to 'summarize' them, preferably condensing ten thousand into 'one'.

Therefore, the abstract 'one' is more in line with this aesthetic.

The Ultimate Great Dao is such an answer.

It seems that by grasping 'one', one grasps everything, and in this way, the world becomes knowable, at least having a direction for exploration.

So, 'one' is the only answer, the ultimate answer, the answer to all questions, the Ultimate Great Dao, the final solution to all things.

Conflicts between things are just a certain side of 'one'; by grasping 'one', one can grasp everything.

The highest pursuit of many people is like this.

However, for Heavenly God like Taiyi and Haotian, these naturally divine beings, there is another possible explanation for this.

There is no existence of 'one'; all things are inherently in conflict with each other, more like an unknowable darkness, where every exploration of essence is an adventure.

The true Dao is not simple and beautiful, but more Chaos, terrifying, difficult to grasp, irrational.

There is no 'one', or rather, each thing is its own 'one', each thing has its own nature, and these natures may inherently be conflicting.

They are not a side projection of some great existence; the triangles and squares of the three-dimensional world are not projections of a higher-dimensional geometric body, but they are simply triangles and squares.

They simply cannot merge; there is no one Dao that encompasses everything.

Due to this nature, different solutions can arise for all things, because no logical System can contain enough simple arithmetic axioms to be complete, so statements that can neither be proven nor disproven can always be deduced from the axioms.

Therefore, the Universe can produce many different versions, incompatible logical axiomatic systems; due to incompleteness, infinitely many variant forms of 'Dao' will fill this Universe.

And the result of this filling is Taiyi.

Li Qi was also like this.

Thus, he frankly acknowledged the independence of the fragments, but this independence did not mean they had broken away, just like the other Star Officials in Taiyi's body.

Taiyi is composed of the Four Symbols.

The Four Symbols are composed of the twenty-eight lunar mansions.

So, are the Four Symbols Taiyi?

Are the twenty-eight lunar mansions the Four Symbols?

Of course not; they are all independent existences. Taiyi is Taiyi, the Four Symbols are the Four Symbols, and the twenty-eight lunar mansions are the twenty-eight lunar mansions. There is no such thing as the Four Symbols and Taiyi being the same thing.

In this way, Li Qi and all the fragments achieved a unification.

And so did his Inner World.

Since all things are self-sustaining and self-generating, it is normal for contradictions to exist. How many conflicting Mortal existences are there within Taiyi's body? Did Taiyi self-destruct?

No, Taiyi is capable of containing them.

And Li Qi, as 'half a Heavenly God', also applied this nature here.

Li Qi's Inner World naturally contains many things, but these things are self-sustaining, self-serving, and self-generating. Like Li Qi's fragments, they can integrate with Li Qi into a higher-level existence.

After all this integration...

It was the Second Grade Li Qi.

A Chaos collective, an incomprehensible aggregate.

Looking up at his body, one could seemingly see the clear blue sky to the bottom and white clouds standing like mountains.

This sky seemed to display its endless height to the viewer.

But rather, the vastness of far more than a million worlds, a hundred billion worlds.

What he would control in the future would be infinity.

Every world, every possibility, every individual, has its historical evolution, its values, and will explore the possibility of pursuing happiness in its unique living environment.

There will be countless kinds of happiness, countless kinds of benefits, countless kinds of different fundamental realities.

At this moment, Li Qi had a Universe so complex it was unimaginable; when a creature faced multiple choices, it would choose all options, and in this way, Li Qi's Inner World had many different histories.

In Li Qi's current Inner World, the evolutionary process was unimaginably complex; every stage had countless different choices, every moment faced many possible paths, however, Li Qi no longer needed to choose at this moment...

He could simultaneously choose all options.

Combined in this way, at every stage and every moment within his Inner World, countless small branching possibilities would arise, countless small, separate, independent possibilities.

These possibilities might even be conflicting.

But now, Li Qi, as an 'aggregate', took them all in, examining all these contradictions and harmonies from a peculiar perspective.

Taiyi looked at the current Li Qi and said, "Then, on the Heavenly Demon's side—"

"Leave it to me," Li Qi said.

"Be careful," Taiyi said, then expelled Li Qi from this place.

He seemed unwilling to say much more to Li Qi, or perhaps, he was inherently a person of few words.

Li Qi glanced at his current self.

How wonderful; with Taiyi's help, he maintained a complete self-awareness, and at the same time, he was a unified body of thousands of collections, all fragments also maintaining complete personalities, and these two forms had no conflict in him.

Was this the body of a 'Star Official'? This power that takes all things as its components, and also a philosophy that frankly acknowledges the contradictions of the world.

Li Qi's nature as 'half a Heavenly God' was revealed without a doubt at this moment.

He maintained this posture and landed outside.

In the starry sky outside, the Demonic Prince, who had removed his mask, was leaning against the Ink Tiger.

Seeing Li Qi arrive, the Ink Tiger immediately crouched down and hid behind the Demonic Prince, although his several-zhang-long body couldn't really hide, it was still a gesture.

And the Demonic Prince walked towards Li Qi.

The two creations of the Heavenly Demon, the two 'Heavenly Demon's Sons', met at this moment.

They existed as pawns for the destruction of Buddhism, and now, after everything ended, the reason for their reunion... was still the World Honored One Tathagata.

The World Honored One Tathagata said many things to the Demonic Prince before his nirvana, even prophesying that the Demonic Prince would become a World Honored One Tathagata in the future, just as he had said to Sariputra, which is why the Demonic Prince was freed from the Retribution of Black Karma.

And Li Qi had also spoken to someone before his Reincarnation.

The Golden Monkey 'Wukong'.

Now that he thought about it, that name was very interesting.

Wukong, Wukong.

Did Li Qi comprehend Emptiness?

Perhaps.

The World Honored One Tathagata did some things for both Demonic Prince before his nirvana; now it seems these things clearly aroused the Heavenly Demon's interest.

The Heavenly Demon was dispirited after the World Honored One Tathagata's nirvana, and after that, these two Demonic Prince became the Heavenly Demon's current interest.

Was this... the World Honored One Tathagata and the Heavenly Demon finding something to do?

Li Qi did not know, but he was clearly no longer confused.

"Your matter, I will leave it for after the Heavenly Demon," the Demonic Prince said to Li Qi.

Li Qi nodded: "Thank you."

The Demonic Prince frankly accepted Li Qi's thanks, then left the place with the Ink Tiger.

And Li Qi also left the place accordingly.

He had finally awakened, and before doing anything, there was one thing he couldn't wait to do.

He swiftly arrived at Mystic Radiance Mountain.

And at Mystic Radiance Mountain, Zhu Fengdan and Taizi Changqin were already waiting there.

Clearly, they knew something.

How long had Li Qi stayed with Taiyi?

At least several hundred million years.

And during this time, no one came, which was enough to show that the two of them had persuaded them.

La Qi and Li Shiwei were also standing behind; like Li Qi, he was very respectful of etiquette, so it was better to stand behind at this time.

However, standing in front was Shen Shuibi.

Seeing Li Qi descend here again, that familiar yet strange aura came, but Shen Shuibi stopped in place.

How many years, how many times? How many times had she mistaken him?

Would it be the same this time?

The rabbit was timid, standing still, not moving.

And Li Qi took a step forward, took out a hairpin from the Void Realm, came before her, looked at her short hair, and handed it to her: "I'm back. From now on... you can grow your hair out again."

Shen Shuibi was momentarily lost in thought.

And Li Qi took another step, bowed deeply: "Master, Senior Martial Uncle, I'm back."