Chapter 807

A cited record states that Ren Zu leaves the Door of Life and Death and wanders ordinary abyss without finding an exit. Cognition Gu tells him that following another’s footsteps offers little hope of becoming extraordinary, urging him to face every difficulty and carve his own footprints. Encouraged, he leaves the old trail for new ground. ^{ch. 807}

The ground is hostile: swamp and stench, thorns and blade Gu that cut his soles until he bleeds. Walking softly to spare the pain, he keeps losing his way and retracing routes. Shallow footprints, cognition Gu explains, are erased by the abyss’s winds; he must step heavily instead, leaving deep footprints. ^{ch. 807}

Even deep footprints wear away. Cognition Gu notes he detours around thorns and blades: comfort cannot coexist with becoming extraordinary. Ren Zu takes the hint and walks the painful ground deliberately. ^{ch. 807}

A stem of grass, named accomplishment, sprouts from each footprint his blood and sweat feed. Unlike the prints, it lasts far longer. Ren Zu never loses his way again, and the grass grows into accomplishment trees that eventually bear fruit. ^{ch. 807}

Resting against a tree, Ren Zu eats its fruit to recover. In time he crosses the abyss, but the forest he raises reveals no exit. A fruit tastes bitter: a second heart, discontent, has grown in him unnoticed, souring everything he eats from then on. ^{ch. 807}

His original heart, of loneliness, speaks through self Gu. An accomplishment tree taller than the abyss would let him climb out. Blood from his feet grows only ordinary trees, but heart’s blood, drawn by the ground’s buried blades, could grow a great one. ^{ch. 807}

Ren Zu tries it. The wound to his heart brings hundreds and thousands of times the pain of any wound on his body, but the trees it waters grow much taller than the rest. Aided by hope Gu, he stabs more blades for larger trees, though his tallest reaches only half the abyss’s height. ^{ch. 807}

When one tree’s crown reaches the abyss’s height, its trunk splits, and a girl steps into his embrace calling him father: his fourth child, Boundless Forest Samsara. He raises her on the forest’s fruit, and she thrives. ^{ch. 807}

Still bent on leaving, Ren Zu ignores her pleas to stay, and plants a still greater tree whose branches clear the abyss. She begs not to be abandoned, since she cannot climb or plant trees and would starve alone. He vows to carry her out, and they climb together. ^{ch. 807}

The climb exhausts him fast: carrying her makes a dangerous ascent worse, and the tree starts to crack. Cognition Gu warns the tree carries only him to extraordinary, not her, so leaving is impossible. Hope Gu warns that his heart’s blood is already dry and urges him to leave her before the tree collapses. Ren Zu refuses. ^{ch. 807}

Self Gu, unwilling to argue, bites her hand. In pain and fury she lets go and falls, landing hurt but alive. As the tree collapses, self Gu pushes Ren Zu, and he steps out of the abyss. ^{ch. 807}

Stranded at the cliff’s edge with no way back, Ren Zu vows to return for her. She cries that he is cruel to leave her alone and afraid. He searches for a way back but finds none. Self Gu tells him his fallen tree proves his grandeur: a person that extraordinary cannot enter ordinary abyss. ^{ch. 807}

In Hu Immortal blessed land’s Dang Hun palace, Fang Yuan closes the book. Discontent with being ordinary is a trait he shares with Dong Fang Chang Fan. He tells Chang Fan’s restrained, voiceless soul that in this they are alike. Resonating in answer, Chang Fan’s soul tells Fang Yuan to search it freely, but says the inheritance is harder to receive than he thinks. ^{ch. 807}