Chapter 2090: The Spirit of the Generous Pot

He Lingchuan immediately recalled one of the reasons Panlong City withdrew its troops from Xianyuan: General Hong had gone into seclusion!

The situation was still unstable, so why would General Hong hastily go into seclusion? Zhong Shengguang never mentioned this, and everyone merely speculated internally without asking many questions. However, General Hong later emerged from seclusion and made an appearance; she seemed perfectly fine, which reassured everyone and put their minds at ease.

Yet, whenever He Lingchuan had a moment to reflect, he recalled how, years ago, when he first entered Panlong City and met General Hong for the first time, she exuded a powerful aura. It felt like facing a towering mountain; the closer one approached, the more immense and unyielding it seemed.

Now, encountering General Hong again, she seemed to have transformed into a black hole—nothing was discernible, yet one knew she was unfathomably deep.

It was noteworthy that He Lingchuan was no longer who he once was; he could hold his own against immortals for several moves, yet he still couldn't assess General Hong's power.

Undoubtedly, compared to a few years prior, her strength had significantly increased. This was, in fact, implicitly reflected in Panlong City's actions of conquering territories and expanding its influence.

Zhong Shengguang patted He Lingchuan's shoulder and said, "General Hong told me that Mytian has actually been exploring and testing the method of descending using the Grand Square Gourd. It's not very confident either."

"I understand." He Lingchuan clearly knew that although General Hong was powerful, she was essentially still within the scope of a divine descent body. Mytian intended to "fully" descend into the human world using General Hong's body, which meant essentially transferring all of its consciousness and power into General Hong, thereby bypassing the barrier between the two realms.

This method of "smuggling" exploited a loophole in the rules, but it had to be done through the Grand Square Gourd as a medium.

As anxious as Zhong Shengguang was when refining the Bright Lantern, Mytian was no less so when experimenting with the Grand Square Gourd's properties. After all, this idea and this action were unprecedented; it was the first to attempt such a feat.

Whether it would succeed as Mytian envisioned was likely uncertain even to Mytian itself.

"So, that's why General Hong went into seclusion recently?" He Lingchuan sensed something was amiss. "She had to cooperate with Mytian's tests?"

Zhong Shengguang sighed, "She had no choice."

General Hong had long ago made a pact with Mytian and could not resist its possession.

He Lingchuan had known for a long time that there was almost only one way to escape the "divine descent body" curse: to erase the "mark" that the Celestial Demon had imprinted on the body. He himself had used a "bug-exploiting" method, planting Naraka's avatar into the Grand Square Gourd, which prevented Naraka from sending a second avatar to the lower realm.

But General Hong's predicament was much more complex.

Although He Lingchuan knew Zhong Shengguang had already thought things through thoroughly, he couldn't help but suggest, "What if we lure Mytian into the Grand Square Gourd's internal space and trap it there?"

"Internal space within the gourd?" Zhong Shengguang glanced at him with a strange look. "Where would there be an internal space? How did you come up with that?"

"There isn't?" He Lingchuan said dryly. "Since it's a gourd, surely it's hollow inside?"

"Although it's called a 'gourd,' every time I've used my divine sense to probe inside after acquiring the Grand Square Gourd, it's been a chaotic void, as if there's nothing there. But I can clearly feel that inside the gourd, there should be..." Zhong Shengguang carefully chose his words, "...a certain presence. However, in that form, I cannot communicate with it. It's like how humans cannot communicate with heaven and earth, or with the very laws of existence."

"I see," He Lingchuan said, a look of realization on his face, but a storm brewed in his heart.

During the historical Panlong City era, the Grand Square Gourd had not yet developed an internal space!

However, when He Lingchuan first entered the ancient Panlong City and jumped into the pool in front of the temple for the first time, the internal space of this divine artifact already existed and contained so many heroic souls of Panlong!

Recalling the scene of Panlong City's fall that he witnessed in the Great Evolution Celestial Bead, remembering Zhong Shengguang's pleas and vows before he took his own life, and remembering Miaozhantian's mention of General Hong being struck by a thousand lightning bolts on the day the city fell, he finally understood:

The Grand Square Gourd itself was indeed constantly evolving, and before encountering He Lingchuan, its most astonishing transformation was the shift of its internal space from "nothingness" to "existence," from chaos to creation. And this was very likely facilitated by Zhong Shengguang and General Hong.

Furthermore, there was a crucial point:

During the Panlong City era, it was highly probable that the Grand Square Gourd had some form of communication with Zhong Shengguang. Otherwise, at the critical moment of Panlong City's fall, why would Zhong Shengguang be so certain that the Grand Square Gourd would accept his request?

He Lingchuan now desperately wanted to know who had told Zhong Shengguang that the Bright Lantern could help General Hong resist Mytian? And why would Zhong Shengguang believe it so deeply?

However, after the gourd came into He Lingchuan's possession, this communication became very... profound.

He knew, of course, that the gourd itself had a will—otherwise, why would it lead him into its internal space, or refine and transform the seeds of the Juluo and Asked Trees for him? But it never communicated directly with him, only allowing him to understand things on his own.

Since his relationship with Zhong Shengguang was already extraordinary, he simply asked directly:

"Commander, who exactly confirmed that the Bright Lantern would be useful for General Hong? Was it the Grand Square Gourd?"

The latter part was just a casual remark, but unexpectedly, Zhong Shengguang hesitated slightly and actually nodded.

"Well, you could say that."

This meant that while not exactly spot on, it wasn't far off either.

"The G-..." He Lingchuan's throat felt a bit dry. "Can the Grand Square Gourd communicate directly with you?"

He emphasized the word "directly."

The Grand Square Gourd could communicate with him too, but it was mostly through a game of "guess what I'm thinking"—it would never tell him, "You need to find the Bright Lantern!"

How unfair!

Zhong Shengguang hesitated again before saying, "The Grand Square Gourd cannot, but its artifact spirit once could."

He emphasized again: "Once."

"Artifact spirit?!" In that instant, countless thoughts flashed through He Lingchuan's mind like a rapid slideshow.

Perhaps his expression was too shocked, as Zhong Shengguang found it strange. "The Grand Square Gourd is also a magical artifact. Is it strange for a magical artifact to have an artifact spirit?"

He Lingchuan could only reply, "No, it's not strange."

The Soul-Snatching Mirror, which constantly babbled in his embrace, was an artifact spirit; the Blood Demon attached to his cloak could also be considered an artifact spirit in a sense.

But what about the Grand Square Gourd's artifact spirit? Why hadn't it come to him?

It could clearly communicate directly with Zhong Shengguang over a hundred years ago!

That's right, before Zhong Shengguang sent him across the ocean to retrieve the Bright Lantern, he had asked him a question:

Do you think the Grand Square Gourd has a spirit or not?

So that was it.

"But it told me that the Grand Square Gourd would one day no longer need an artifact spirit." Zhong Shengguang patted He Lingchuan's shoulder again. "Back to business. Have you noticed any slight difference in the elemental energy while leading troops recently?"

"It's stronger," He Lingchuan didn't fully elaborate. "Isn't the elemental energy from the Grand Square Gourd? Perhaps if you ask the gourd's artifact spirit, you might find an answer."

Why seek far and wide when the answer is close at hand?