Just as Hua Poan said, the blood pool that the blood demon beast turned into after it died was gradually expanding, swallowing the grass and trees along the river bank and soaking the river water of the moat. Slowly, the edge of the city wall began to collapse, and the bricks and tiles fell into the blood and melted into a thick bright red slurry.
This kind of erosion was no longer like when the two armies confronted each other where victory or defeat would be determined in an instant.
It was more like a snake swaying in a haystack, spitting out its message inch by inch, ready to swallow the huge prey in front of it…
During this period of time, Chonghua and Liaoguo did not fight. On both sides, across the bloody river, Chonghua was dead, and Liaoguo was gradually celebrating.
It was night.
Mo Xi boarded the tower alone and looked out of the city beside the towering turret and the red river. Under the building was the water of the blood pool. Across the vast water surface of the red river, he could see the company camp of Liaoguo with bright lights, practitioners sitting around the stove and lighting a single campfire. It was like total victory was in sight.
Following him, Li Wei, the manager of Xihe mansion, closed his sleeves and hung his head, waiting under the turret.
A little refiner asked anxiously, "Manager Li, is Xihe Jun alright..."
Li Wei was silent for a moment. Although he had a golden lotus tongue, he couldn't say anything.
Was Mo Xi alright?
He didn't know. Nobody had an answer to this question.
After Gu Mang's sacrifice, Chonghua's heavy soldiers once thought that Mo Xi would lose his mind, that he would collapse, that he would abandon himself and that he would be heartbroken.
But he didn't.
Many practitioners repeatedly cast their enchantments on the side of the blood pool that the blood demon beast transformed into. They tried their best to catch Gu Mang, even his body.
In the end, Mo Xi said to them, "Don't look, go back and have a rest. The war is not over."
He and Gu Mang were both dead and alive. They had seen too many people die in the fire of war. Their brother who drank wine together yesterday may become a lifeless body the next day.
They didn't even have time to grieve, to swallow the fact, and digest a person's life and death. Everything was rushed, and the responsibility would force the general to sober up.
Because the war wasn't over.
If soldiers lose control out of grief, they might pay for it with their own lives. And if the leader lost control out of grief, how many people would be killed together with him.
Mo Xi knew that he did not have this right.
All he could do for a while was to stand on the side of the blood pool where his lover had sacrificed himself while watching the blood pool and the burning army.
Just for a moment.
The little practitioner couldn't help but ask in a low voice, "Won't Xihe Jun feel sad?"
This time, Li Wei was quick to answer. He said, "He doesn't have a stubborn heart of stone. How could he not be sad?"
After that, Li Wei sighed in his heart and looked at the lonely figure under the starry sky.
On the night when Gu Mang had just sank into the blood pool, it was Mo Xi who personally ordered the practitioners to return to the city to have a rest, so that they would not have to do a meaningless search and rescue.
How many people could be so cold-blooded and calm in their hearts.
Only Li Wei knew what it was like that night when Mo Xi went back to the room where Gu Mang had lived in Xihe mansion and his identity and all his responsibilities had faded.
Li Wei was originally going to clean up the room where there would no longer be a master, but before he pushed the door, he saw Mo Xi's back sitting in front of the small table, on which were the letters Gu Mang once wrote were left. Mo Xi looked at them page by page under the dead lamp. Usually, Gu Mang's records only had happy things. Between the words, he rarely complained or wrote about what was not good.
Mo Xi was immersed in the wonderful past that Gu Mang wove. Fandou lied at his feet and whined. It seemed to be asking him where Gu Mang went. It seemed to be asking him why Gu Mang didn't come back tonight…
After a while, Mo Xi put his head down. Finally, there was a low repressed choking sound in the room. He was now also suppressing his shoulders from shaking. But how could he hold it down? He had been struggling for so long, and his whole body was only left with sadness, pain, and responsibility… He had nothing else.
Over the years, he had gone through false betrayal, real mistakes, and the pain of parting. Every time he told himself, endure it again, endure it again, maybe everything will pass.
Even a few days ago, he saw Gu Mang standing in the school yard under the banner of the army. He thought that all the suffering had come to an end, and he thought that after the war, he would be able to survive this long-term defense. But in the end, he was left only with this side of the empty cottage.
The owner of the house had left without even leaving too many traces that he lived here.
It turned out that he had suffered so much, and what he survived was not a long time together, but a long parting.
Mo Xi held up the soft pages and stuck them on his chest, close to his heartbeat. It seemed that the writer's temperature was still on the paper.
He can't help it any longer. He called in a weak, hoarse, low voice, "Gu Mang…" Gu Mang.
After that, he could say no more sentences.
He wasn't the backbone of the Empire, not Mo Shuai. At this moment, he was just a helpless person who was saying goodbye to the one he loved. He was the shidi left in the sea of blood by Gu Shixiong.
All of his comrades had left, and Gu Mang, who was once as young as them, had left.
In the end, he was the only one left. He was alone before dawn.
Regardless of love or hate.
His Gu Mang gege will never look back at him, laugh at him openly, or be bewildered.
He let out a hoarse sob, like a dying beast howling in pain and the last of his self-control was torn up. Mo Xi lowered his head, choked, and mourned At last, he was like a trapped animal who had lost his life partner, like a lonely lion in the end. He was trapped and desperate. Finally, in this silent night, he sobbed.
Life was so long, mountains and rivers were so wide, but only this moment, only this piece of heaven and earth, was his own.
Li Wei looked at his back, sighed, and gently closed the door for him
Mo Xi had never been merciless.
Li Wei knew that in Chonghua, there might not be a person who could really understand what Gu Mang was for Mo Xi. Not light, not fire, not hope, not lovers, not brothers… Gu Mang to Mo Xi, was perhaps more than these together.
So Mo Xi ordered them not to waste their energy on search and rescue. It wasn't that he was giving up. It was because Mo Xi knew better than anyone - what Gu Mang's decision was.
What Gu Mang wanted.
And whether he would come back.
Li Wei left this deep courtyard, and he admired his master very much. In fact, from the year when Mo Xi gave himself to the emperor, he felt that Xihe Jun was the backbone of Chonghua.
Now his back was bending in the place that others couldn't see. It was very painful and hard to support. But the whole nation could only see Mo Xi's toughness, forgetting that he was only flesh and blood. He had just lost his most important person, but he wasn't allowed to take a breath as a living person to miss the embrace and breath of another person. There was only this small lonely room.
That was his home with his Gu Mang gege.
Li Wei couldn't bear to disturb or look at it again. This was Mo Xi's farewell to Gu Mang. It had nothing to do with Xihe Jun, Gu Shuai, respect, inferiority, life and death, or anyone else.
He was the manager of Xihe mansion, and could keep this secret for his Lord.
On the fourth day, the capital of Chonghua was swallowed up by the blood pool. Half of the citizens had to retreat to the back of the city, watching their former home become a sea of blood.
Fortunately, Yue Chenqing was good at mechatronics. Among the books left by Murong Chuyi, there was another volume about how to build shelter as quickly as possible. He followed the drawings to put off the difficulties of these people.
That was the magic of Murong Chuyi.
Yue Chenqing thought that if his fourth uncle was still alive, he would do a lot more comprehensively than him.
But his little uncle was no longer here.
Only he could continue Murong Chuyi's gentleness in these turbulent times.
"Fourth Uncle, I may not be good enough, but..." He looked up at the starry sky. His fingers trembled slightly, but he still did not put down the bamboo warrior he was fixing.
"But I'll do what you wanted to do."
"I am Yue Chenqing, your nephew, the master of the family, and your heir."
The stars twinkled, shining over the land of beacon fire and smoke, and also reflecting in Yue Chenqing's tearful eyes.
Yue Chenqing sobbed, "You are in the sky… You have seen it all... "
You have been protecting me in silence.
Now it's me, Uncle.
I'm here to protect our home.
Like Yue Chenqing, today's Chonghua, everyone was fighting to defend their family and state.
Once, the empire was indeed in a state of scattered sand, but because there were people like Gu Mang and Murong Chuyi who sacrificed their blood first, and because if they were defeated in this war, they would have no way out. Everyone knew very clearly in their hearts, so the scattered sand finally came together.
To become solid, become strong.
The pool of blood was spreading, but resilience was rising from the despair.
They were looking for a way to win.
The fifth day.
When all the nobles and high-ranking leaders were studying how to curb the expansion of the blood pool in the Royal Palace's military department office, suddenly a guard came in to report——
"Xihe Jun! Wangshu Jun! Princess Mengze. " The guards saluted the three most reliable people in the hall in turn, and then said, "Pharmacist Jiang is back! He's waiting outside the hall!"
When Jiang Fuli entered the hall, everyone was stunned.
Among them, Su Yurou, his wife, was the most important. Although Su Yurou covered her face with white gauze, she could not see his face clearly. However, when she saw Jiang Fuli's appearance, her cup in her hand slipped and fell to the ground and smashed to pieces.
"Fuli, you --"
Jiang Fuli was dressed in a blue and silver robe. The materials and workmanship of the clothes were excellent, but they still could not cover up his unkempt state. The most surprising thing was his eyes.
His left eye, which was already night blind, was completely invisible. The snow white gauze obliquely wrapped over it was permeated with bright red blood.
Hearing the sound, he looked at Su Yurou quietly with his clear almond-shaped right eye. The two people's eyes touched each other, as if they had exchanged a secret unknown to others. Su Yurou suddenly collapsed.
Mo Xi heard her murmur in an almost undetectable voice and softly call, "Palace master."
Jiang Fuli's clothes were disheveled but his expression was fair. Although his face was still the face of the treacherous businessman Pharmacist Jiang, his temperament was quite different from that of the past. The manner between his eyebrows was not even the same person. At the moment, he looked gentle, calm and firm, not like the old Pharmacist Jiang, who often gave people a different feeling, as if he never knew or cared for anything except for money and
silk.
The former Pharmacist Jiang was a ruthless puppet.
But the man who returned today seemed like a puppet finally recalled the lost soul.
Jiang Fuli used his remaining beautiful eye to sweep around the room. His eyes successively stayed on Murong Lian and Murong Mengze for a moment, and finally fell on Mo Xi.
He was silent for a moment and said in a low voice, "Master Xihe, I have something important to do. Please move."
Jiang Fuli was very polite when he said this sentence, but somehow there was a kind of pressure. Everyone in the room felt the sudden change of Jiang Fuli's character, so when they looked at him, they could not help worrying a little more. Murong Lian took a mouthful of life like a dream, and suddenly raised his hand and held Mo Xi who ready to leave with Jiang Fuli. "Wait a minute." Then he squinted at Jiang Fuli with his peach blossom eyes. "Are you the real Pharmacist Jiang or a fake again?"
"When you were seven years old, you put a thick pile of silk paper in your shoes because you didn't like your height. As a result, you fell down, broke your head, and I sewed—"
"Stop, stop, stop!" Murong Lian's face was embarrassed, but he still insisted, "OK! I know you're real, okay?"
After that, he let go of Mo Xi, rolled his eyes and whispered.
Mo Xi and Jiang Fuli went to the warm pavilion of the side hall.
The attendant retreated and none of the retinue were left. Jiang Fuli waved his hand, and suddenly they felt a little protective array around them in the warm pavilion. But Mo Xi stopped at the moment when he saw the array.
"... The Shen Ling27 array, which was lost a hundred years ago... " Mo Xi stared at Jiang Fu Li's thin profile. The man's expression was firm and resolute, but he was very haggard.
The words "palace master" that Su Yurou just murmured echoed in his ear.
A conjecture that could be called fantastic suddenly burst in Mo Xi's heart. He couldn't help but ask, "Who are you?"
Jiang Fuli did not say a word and sat down at the table.
The room was quiet, and the light of the Shen Ling array was flowing the whole time. Mo Xi could hear his heart beating. After a long time, he tried to ask in a low voice, "— The palace master…"
Jiang Fuli raised his eyes.
The perfectly glazed almond-shaped eye looked very peaceful. He said, "I'm not."
"..."
"Shen Tang died hundreds of years ago. I'm just Jiang Fuli." He paused for a moment and then said, "Besides, I've heard about Gu Shuai."
Gu Mang's name was like a cone needle, stabbing into his broken heart. Mo Xi suddenly lowered his long eyelashes, covering his trembling eyes.
Jiang Fuli said, "He was still very young. He had not received the respect he deserved and got the peace he deserved. He is different from Shen Tang… Both of them died with the blood demon beast, but Gu Shuai himself still had a desire and a fetter in this world."
When he mentioned the fetter, he took a deep look at Mo Xi.
Then he said, "Shen Tang did not."
"..."
"At the moment when Shen Tang died with the blood demon beast, he was already disheartened and had nothing to think about. Shen Tang wanted to die, but Gu Mang wanted to survive." Jiang Fuli shook his head and said, "I'm sorry. It shouldn't have been like this."
Mo Xi slightly frowned. "But you… If you were not Shen Tang, how could you know what Shen Tang thought at that time?"
Jiang Fuli was silent as expected.
After a long time, he sighed, "It's really complicated to talk about."
"I'd like to hear more about it."
Jiang Fuli stopped and seemed to be thinking about how to open his mouth. Finally, he said, "When I was healing Gu Mang before, I sympathized with part of his memory. When I saw you on Bat Island, you met a girl named Wuyan."
"That's a demon who yearned for Shen Tang..."
"Not bad," Jiang Fuli said, "but when I saw the memory, I always felt as if I had seen her somewhere."
Jiang Fuli poured two cups of strong tea. He pushed one to Mo Xi on the other side of the table, and the other he drank slowly. Mo Xi at this time found that the position of his white gauze that covered his eye was sunken. There is no arc of the eye - Jiang Fuli has completely lost his left eye.
But he didn't seem to care. He acted as if he didn't care about his health or his body.
He said, "I have been in Chonghua for so many years. Many people ask me which country I am from and what happened to me. I don't answer. They just say that I'm cool and don't want to talk about it, but it's not that. " He paused for a moment and shook his head with a wry smile. "I really don't know who I am."
"Almost all the memories I have started when Yurou and I went into exile. She said that I was ill and had forgotten the past, so I had no idea and believed in her. About my life experience, where I came from, my wife Yurou told me everything, and I was also inexplicably bored. I instinctively repelled it in my heart, and I never wanted to go into it."
"But these years… I began to dream. In my dreams, I could always see some people and things repeated, but they were fragmented and I had no clue. Yurou has never said anything. She said she didn't know what I asked her, and I didn't check it carefully… Until not long ago, I treated Gu Mang and saw his memory of Bat Island. As like as two peas in a dream, I saw the Wuyan."
Jiang Fuli closed his eyes and said, "I thought at that time that if I went to see Wuyan, I might know what kind of person I was before."
Mo Xi thought of Jiang Fuli's treatment of Gu Mang, which showed his mind wandering around the world.
Only then did he know that it was for this reason.
Mo Xi asked, "So you've been wandering for a while, but actually you went to Bat Island?"
"It was just one of the stops. I went to other places… Do you remember the spring-like island where Wuyan and Chen Tang met for the first time?"
Mo Xi nodded.
"I found it, too. It was actually a piece of land carried by Xuanwu. Xuanwu had an alliance with Shen Tang's ancestors. It protected a section of the ancient Emperor Yan's divine wood."
Mo Xi suddenly opened his eyes. "Emperor Yan's divine wood… It's the first tree in the world… The king of trees?"
"Yes," Jiang Fu Li said, "Emperor Yan's divine wood, the king of ten thousand trees which gathers thousands of flowers on one tree. Among them, a section of haitang wood was left in the secular world for some reason. By chance, it was acquired by the ancestors of Chen Tang a thousand years ago…"28 "Chen Tang's ancestors knew very well that the divine wood is an immortal tool, and its power is not trivial. If people learned of this secret, countless people would rush to it to take it as their own. The Chen family had always been tired of war, so they sealed this section of wood on Xuanwu Island and never mentioned it to the outside world. It's just that the divine wood has a spirit. In order to keep it calm and upright, and not be disturbed by turbid miasma, the head of the family will go to live on the island for a month every year to play the qin and cultivate it."
When he said this, Mo Xi understood that Wuyan mistakenly thought that the reason for the immortal spiritual presence on the island that she saw was rich and full of flowers all year round was because Chen Tang was there. In fact, she was totally wrong. The immortal spiritual energy was not caused by Chen Tang, but because of the broken branch of the ancient divine tree guarded by Chen
Tang.
"..." Mo Xi couldn't help asking, "Chen Tang has been dead for a hundred years, and his family was nearly destroyed in the fierce battle with Hua Poan. No one should have been to that Xuanwu Island in the past one hundred years. So what did you see when you went? Is the divine wood still there?"
Jiang Fuli said, "It still is. When I found Xuanwu Island, I saw that the island was full of vegetation and flowers. For hundreds of years, the broken haitang wood had turned it into a place full of divine wood spirits. However, I think that there is wisdom and enlightenment hidden in the tree. I played a piece of music that Chen Tang played a hundred years ago. It seemed that the heart was happy with elegant music, which lead to the blooming of flowers on the island. I think that maybe in a few hundred years, the seal of Xuanwu will not hold, and it may fall into the vast sea again and leave the mortal world…"
Jiang Fuli finished and laughed.
"Although I am curious about its future fate, after hundreds of years, the fate of this sacred tree is not something I can control alone."
When Mo Xi heard this, he suddenly asked, "Pharmacist Jiang, why do you know about the affairs of Chen Tang's family so clearly?"
"..."
"... Are you really not the palace master?"
Jiang Fuli put down his cup and sighed, "Wuyan made me recover my memory.
After I recovered, I also untied the knot in my heart for her - yes, I'm not Chen Tang, but for hundreds of years, there has been a person who hoped that I could completely become Chen Tang."
Mo Xi asked after a moment, "Who?"
Jiang Fuli raised his eyes, and three words fell from his thin lips, "Hua Poan."
Seeing Mo Xi's face, Jiang Fuli seemed to smile bitterly. "Isn't it ridiculous? I thought so myself. I have all the memories and emotions of Chen Tang, but I know I'm not him. "
"So you are..."
"I am Chen Tang's cousin. As for my name..." Jiang Fuli said, "I've had this life for hundreds of years. Hua Poan has called me Chen Tang, and Yu Rou has called me Jiang Fuli. I have been in a muddle for so many years, and I can't remember my real name. All I know is that Hua Poan was reluctant to let Chen Tang die, so he created another abruptly. My body is full of Chen Tang's memory, spirit, spells, and past."
His voice was low and soft with no emotion, but it was also very sad.
Jiang Fuli said, "I'm just a puppet. It's no better than the bamboo warrior made by Murong Chuyi and the clay figurines made by Jiang Yexue."
Although Mo Xi was astonished, he could not bear it in his heart. He said in a low voice, "Pharmacist Jiang..."
But he don't know how to comfort him.
Jiang Fuli said, "You don't have to comfort me. You are already sad enough. People can't see it, but I understand it. I came back today not to find someone to talk to about my past. I'm here to offer the way to defeat the enemy. Since Hua Poan regards me as Chen Tang, I will not be absent in his war a hundred years later."
Mo Xi's heart shuddered. "Do you have the way to crack the spreading blood pool?"
"There is indeed a method that has never been done before. I have no chance of knowing if it will work. I can only try it," Jiang Fuli said. "But I did a divination on Xuanwu Island. The immortal divination said that as long as you do this, everything can change, including life and death."
Hearing the last half sentence, Mo Xi was stunned and responded, "Including life and death..."
"Not bad."
A bright light suddenly filled Mo Xi's eyes like a flame.
This… what do you mean?
Although he felt absurd, his blood was still flowing, and his fingers trembled slightly in his clenched palms. "Consulting the pharmacist please."
Jiang Fuli got up and leaned against the window to take a look outside. At this time, the blood pool of the blood demon beast had spread to the inner city and was slowly continuing to devour the capital.
He turned around and took an obsidian crystal from his spatial bag and put it on the table.
"There are two kinds of hidden treasures in the Chen Tang family. One is the same as what I said earlier. The other is this crystal. This is the most secret and important treasure of the Chen Tang family. It is also the only way to solve the catastrophe in Chonghua."
Jiang Fuli stopped and said, "There is still time. Before I let you use it, I want to tell you about the past I know." "- A past related to Hua Poan."