Chapter 6895 One Who Rings the Bell
The Wine God was a mysterious and ephemeral divinity. Beyond the Wine God Palace, hardly anyone had heard stories about him.
If his legacy were not present here, people would question whether such a god had ever existed.
A white-robed man stood in the beam of light, his robes and hair fluttering around him. He gave off a transcendent feeling that required no law or pressure to express. Just being near him made people want to bow.
The Wine God looked at Long Chen. He initially shook his head but then nodded with a slight smile.
“No and yes, yes and no. But the person I’m waiting for has appeared!”
Long Chen felt his heart tremble and asked nervously, “Senior... am I him?”
“You are him, and you are yourself!"
The Wine God then approached Long Chen, with a beam of light trailing behind him.
As Long Chen was enveloped by this light, this world shifted. He stood beneath a starry sky that illuminated an endless green plain. Nine large star clusters hung in the sky, with black mist converging at the center between them all like a devil’s eye overlooking the earth.
When Long Chen and the Wine God stood shoulder to shoulder, both looking up at the starry sky, the Wine God asked, “Have you ever seen this starry sky?”
Long Chen looked up, shocked to realize this wasn’t an illusion. This was real.
Shaking his head, Long Chen replied, “In this era, there aren’t that many stars in the night sky. They also no longer move in a regular pattern. Their chaos causes my cultivation technique to remain incomplete all this time.”
Long Chen stared closely at the starry sky, wanting to remember the position of every single star. This was an incredibly rare opportunity.
“You can memorize this starry sky, but do not use it as the foundation for your insights. This... is not the original starry sky,” said the Wine God.
“Senior, even back in your era, the sky you saw was not the original starry sky?” Long Chen asked, startled.
The Wine God smiled faintly and patted Long Chen’s shoulder before pulling him down to sit together. He plucked a blade of grass and chewed it thoughtfully.
The Wine God said, "When I was born, the starry sky looked like this. But someone told me it wasn't the original sky, but a revelation from the stars."
"Who told you that?” asked Long Chen quickly.
The Wine God looked at Long Chen.
The Star Master!
Long Chen had guessed as much, but he was still excited. If the Wine God was from the same era as the Star Master, he could tell Long Chen many secrets.
“The Star Master... Ugh, that fellow really caused trouble. I could have spent eternity lost in the Wine Dao, living happily as a god. But that fellow bamboozled me, and I ended up going crazy with him. In the end, I even lost my life because of him...”
The Wine God sighed, put his hands behind his head, and leaned back on the ground. He looked up at the starry sky, chewing the blade of grass again and again. He seemed lost in old memories.
“That guy was sometimes very smart and sometimes very foolish. But he had a strange power that made people follow him into doing crazy things. Even though we knew it wouldn’t end well, we still went along with him. We lost in the end, but honestly, the journey was amazing!”
Suddenly, the Wine God sat up and looked at Long Chen. “By the way, what’s your name?”
“This junior is Long Chen!”
“Long Chen? Even your name is different. Everything has changed...” the Wine God sighed.
“Senior, I met the Starlight Heavenly Sovereign Li Yaochen. He... he was very disappointed when he saw me,” said Long Chen, a sense of indescribable sadness welling up within him.
“It’s normal for him to feel disappointed. He waited so long, but the person he hoped for never showed up. Outsiders can’t really understand how that feels,” said the Wine God.
“Are you very disappointed as well?” asked Long Chen.
“Why would I be?”
The Wine God looked curious.
“Because I’m not the one you were waiting for? After all, I’m not the Star Master,” Long Chen said with a sigh.
The Wine God smirked. “Are you trying to get information out of me? That sneaky side of you is just like his.”
Long Chen awkwardly chuckled after being caught. Then, he gathered his courage and asked, “Senior, I just want to know—am I the Star Master or not?”
The Wine God raised an eyebrow.
“Does it matter? If I told you that you were the Star Master, would you rather be Long Chen or the Star Master?”
The Wine God’s words made Long Chen recall what Li Yaochen had said.
You don’t know who you are, but you are you. When you know who you are, you will no longer be you.
The Wine God looked up at the stars. “Who you are doesn’t matter. What matters is that you know what kind of burden you carry. No matter how confusing things are, the truth will come out eventually. You can’t rush this. Solving these mysteries takes more than power or skill—it takes the right timing.”
“Can you tell me about the battle back then?” asked Long Chen.
The Wine God shook his head and directly rejected the idea.
“What is there to say? A loss is a loss. I’m not going to rub salt in the wound by bringing it up again.”
Long Chen was speechless. It was really tough to get information from the Wine God.
“Then can you tell me about the Star Master?” asked Long Chen, not giving up just yet.
“What is there to tell? His path ultimately ended in failure. Are you going to walk the same path as him?” The Wine God shook his head.
“You won’t tell me this and you won’t tell me that—did you bring me here just to kill time?!" Long Chen finally lost patience. If he wasn’t going to get any answers, why bother bringing him here?
“Hahaha!” The Wine God erupted with laughter. “Yes, that’s right, it’s exactly that look! It’s the very same, hahaha!”
Long Chen was speechless. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t get any answers from the Wine God.
“Brother, calm down! I’ve waited countless years for you! I’m just teasing you,” the Wine God said, smiling as he patted Long Chen’s shoulder.
Then, his expression got serious.
“Fine, I’ll tell you a story. When I got the law mark of the Heavenly Daos, I founded the Wine God Palace. Oh, that’s right, you don’t know what the law mark of the Heavenly Daos is.
“This so-called mark is a recognition from the Heavenly Daos that a person’s understanding of a certain law has reached its peak. You get this mark automatically, and only then can you create a true god path legacy.
“I became the Wine God with my own legacy. But later, I realized this mark from the Heavenly Daos wasn’t quite as described in the legends.
“One day, I met someone called the Star Master. Only then did I learn there was a problem within the Heavenly Daos.
“Also, the Star Master wasn’t the first to find this problem. At most, he was only the second person to ring this bell.”
The second person to ring the bell?
With his eyes wide, Long Chen asked, “Then who was the first person?”