Deep in the starry sky, Li Mu held the Spring and Autumn Brush, its tip pulsing with the primal source energy of the three thousand worlds. Lin Xue stood beside him, the Xuanyuan Sword letting out a clear, resonant hum, its blade shimmering with an interwoven halo of the Chaos Green Lotus and the World-Cleansing White Lotus. As the final stroke fell, the true edition of the Tao Te Ching burst into an unprecedented radiance, and the rules governing the entire universe began to reconstitute.
"Not yet enough," Li Mu said, suddenly raising his head, his gaze piercing through the endless void. "Though the Dao Ancestor is destroyed, the tampered Heavenly Dao is still collapsing."
He unfurled a bamboo slip to reveal a fresh, blank section—an unfinished passage intentionally left behind by Laozi back then, awaiting later generations to complete it. From the sandalwood box handed over by Chen Xiaoyu, the Spring and Autumn Brush suddenly flew up, automatically landing in Li Mu's palm. The brush shaft was as warm and smooth as jade, yet it contained the power to rewrite heaven and earth.
"Using the brush as a sword, we shall reset the heavens!"
Li Mu wrote in mid-air, every single character transforming into a golden rune that soared toward the myriad realms. When he wrote the words "Dao follows nature," the tip of his brush suddenly paused—the residual will of the Dao Ancestor emerged from the void, transforming into a ferocious starry ghost face that lunged forward! That face, condensed from starlight, twisted and warped, letting out a deafening roar: "Mere characters within a book, how dare you tamper with the Heavenly Dao?!"
Lin Xue swung her sword at the ghost face, the Xuanyuan Sword colliding with the starlight to unleash a blinding energy storm. Reeling from the counter-shock, she staggered back, a trace of blood spilling from the corner of her lips. "Li Mu, he is drawing upon the universe's source energy to resist!"
The ghost face let out a harsh, shrill laugh. "You are nothing more than a few lines of text inside the Tao Te Ching. Did you really think you could rebel against the author's will?"
Li Mu sneered, and the Spring and Autumn Brush suddenly split into myriad forms, tracing arcane trajectories across the void. "You are wrong. We are not characters in a book—" Wherever the brush tip passed, space and time twisted, "—we are the Dao itself!"
Amidst the earth-shattering collision, an even more shocking truth came to light: all worlds did indeed exist within the Tao Te Ching, but this scripture was being read by an entity from a higher dimension. The Dao Ancestor was merely a wisp of obsession cast into the book by some reader!
"Do you understand now?" The ghost face twisted and morphed, its voice shifting near and far. "Your so-called struggle is nothing more than a plot that was already written long ago..."
"So what if it is?" Li Mu suddenly drove the brush tip straight into his own chest, dipping it in his heart's blood as he continued to write. "Even a life that is written for us shall be lived on our own terms!"
Blood stained the bamboo slip crimson, and three completely distinct final chapters emerged simultaneously:
On the Heavenly Dao path, Li Mu fused his body with the Dao, transforming into cold, unfeeling rules. All things operated with strict order, but every trace of joy, anger, sorrow, and delight would be formatted away;
On the Human Dao path, he personally burned the Tao Te Ching to ashes, freeing the myriad realms from the book's shackles. Spiritual energy would dissipate, and humanity would usher in an era of pure technology;
On the Chaos path, the scripture was preserved, but the final chapter was rewritten. Immortal cultivation and technology coexisted, and good and evil were no longer strictly black and white...
"Pick one," the ghost face mocked. "No matter which choice you make, it is a pre-written ending."
Yet Li Mu suddenly smiled. He raised the Spring and Autumn Brush and added a short line of small characters right below the three endings: "Reader friend, how would you like this story to continue?"
The moment the brush fell, the barrier of the higher dimension shattered. The ghost face shrieked in disbelief: "You actually dare to... break the fourth wall?!"
The starry sky began to reassemble, and the points of light representing countless worlds rearranged themselves. Lin Xue watched in astonishment as her figure completely materialized—Li Mu had rewritten the fate that "sword spirits must perish" with the Spring and Autumn Brush. Chen Xiaoyu's Kongtong Seal suddenly flew up, transforming into a dazzling golden bridge that spanned across the myriad realms. Countless familiar figures appeared upon the bridge: Laozi's silhouette riding an ox westward, Xuanchengzi leading a vast army of cultivators, and the electronic monks of the Mechanical Buddha Realm attaining their freedom...
"This is not the end," Li Mu said, putting away the bamboo slip as he looked out into the depths of the starry sky. "It is a new beginning."
He took Lin Xue's hand in his left and pulled Chen Xiaoyu with his right, the three of them stepping onto the golden bridge side by side. Behind them, the true edition of the rewritten Tao Te Ching dissolved into billions of flowing rays of light, scattering into the three thousand worlds.
In the final scene, the three figures vanished into the brilliant sea of stars. And in a certain inconspicuous corner, a small shop named Daode Bookstore quietly opened for business. On the bookshelf, the title page of Three Thousand Years of Qi Refining glowed faintly, where a line of small text could vaguely be seen: "The story is not yet over, waiting for you to continue writing."
(The End)