It was hardly suprising that Ye Wangxi despised Mei Hanxue. This
man was none other than that "da-shixiong" from Peach Blossom Springs
who'd had innumerable female cultivators cooing over him and squabbling
jealously for his attention.
Nangong Si had initially assumed that this new arrival was some
powerful character, but he turned out to be a pretty boy who relied on his
looks. His initial interest vaporized in an instant, and he turned back to the
battle at hand.
Mei Hanxue glanced at Xue Meng, a flicker of exasperation in his
gaze, but did not deign to respond. His brows dipped and his fingers danced
over the strings of the pipa. At the sound of his notes, the hundred cultivators
of Taxue Palace spread out in all directions. "Guqin division, play the Song
of Alkaid;5
pipa division, perform the Nullification Dance."
On his command, the ensemble changed its tune. A cascade of chords,
played strong and fast, blended into a resounding refrain that scattered the
clouds. Immediately, the hordes of demonic fiends ceased their fighting and
stood in place with necks outstretched and hollow stares on their ghastly
faces.
Seeing this, Li Wuxin was reminded that those of Kunlun Taxue Palace
were not only masters of music, but also knew something of barrier-mending.
He tilted his head up and yelled, delighted, "Honored nephew6
Mei, would
you happen to know how to mend the Heavenly Rift?"
Mei Hanxue ignored that distasteful address of honored nephew and
answered, "The Heavenly Rift of the Infinite Hells is beyond my abilities."
"Ah, then…" Li Wuxin's face paled, then he swept his sleeve and
sighed gustily.
"Hanxue, what about the barrier around Butterfly Town—would you
be able to hold that down?" Xue Zhengyong spoke up.
Sisheng Peak and Taxue Palace had always been on friendly terms,
and Mei Hanxue, seeing a familiar senior, bowed courteously. "I can try."
"Great!" Xue Zhengyong slapped his hands together. "You go guard the
barrier at the cardinal directions, make sure the demons don't escape, and
call Yuheng back—"
"The Yuheng Elder?"
"Ah, my damn memory, I forgot you've never met Yuheng. Don't
worry; you'll know him when you see him. Just look for the person
maintaining the barrier right now."
"Understood." Mei Hanxue, cool and collected, sailed off toward the
outskirts of the town with a tilt of his sword, like a shooting star upon the
wind.
Nangong Si nocked three arrows onto his bow and loosed them in
three directions at once. Amidst the thrumming of the bowstring, he saw Mei
Hanxue shoot past with speed and grace as the rest of the disciples from
Taxue Palace suppressed the enemy with mellifluous chords. He was
surprised despite himself. "This person seems quite capable after all," he
said to Ye Wangxi. "Why did you call him a pretty boy who relies on women
to fight his battles?"
Ye Wangxi, somewhat baffled himself, had no immediate answer. But
the fiends were moving sluggishly now, presenting an ideal opportunity to
destroy them, so he didn't waste time thinking about it. "Perhaps he didn't go
all out against me back then," he offered, then turned back to the enemy and
said no more.
With four of the ten great sects now on the scene, the fight against the
Heavenly Rift became somewhat less desperate. But the battle was still a
harrowing one.
Although the fiends presently on the ground were immobilized by the
chords of Taxue Palace, more oozed, shrieking and howling, from that bloody
eye linked to the ghost realm with each passing minute. The force from Taxue
Palace had taken up position in midair, but they couldn't defend themselves
while playing. Thus the demonic fiends rushed toward the pipa and guqin
players where they hung between the clouds.
The Taxue Palace disciples had no choice but to divert some of their
number to play a song of defense. The song of suppression and exorcism
weakened at once, and the masses of fiends on the ground resumed their
furious rampage. Worse still, as the portal to the ghost realm yawned wider,
several high-level demons consumed enough yang energy from the mortal
realm to cast off their fetters and cross the rift, dragging their chains and
shackles behind them.
These creatures were nothing like the minor fiends that preceded them.
They were possessed of both their corpses and resentful souls, and were far
more powerful and vicious, well beyond the scope of what an average
cultivator could handle alone. In an instant, some hapless stragglers were
slammed to the ground in a single strike, their chests pierced through by bony
claws.
Blood splattered across the ground with a wet squelch as the highlevel demons ripped out those cultivators' hearts, rich with spiritual energy.
The fiends bit greedily into them, red blood gushing out and streaming down
the rotting flesh of their faces. Soon their mouths were bloody and dangling
with gore, and the demons grew ever stronger, plunging into the crowd and
seeking their next meal like beasts of prey.
All hell broke loose.
"Set arrays and form groups!" Xue Zhengyong shouted. "Stay together!
Don't run off!"
But some of the cultivators were already overcome by fear, running
around in hysterics, screaming and crying as they fled in all directions. The
stench of blood grew thick in the air; the demonic fiends swept forward like
the tide, and the corpses of the dead piled high.
Nangong Si was fully engaged in combat, letting fly arrow after arrow,
when a hanged ghost, its bloodred tongue dangling from its mouth, rushed
forward and latched onto him. It raised its claw, aiming straight for his chest.
When Ye Wangxi turned and saw, the color drained instantly from his usually
composed face. He was too far away—"A-Si!"
"Gongzi!" In the nick of time, Song Qiutong sprang forward with her
sword and stabbed the hanged ghost in the arm. But she'd never killed a
person before, much less a ghastly fiend like this. Fear overtook her, and the
long sword fell from her hand and clattered to the ground.
The hanged ghost lunged at her in fury. Nangong Si traded bow for
sword as he stepped before her to block its attack. "Get away from here,
hurry!"
Song Qiutong's eyes glistened with tears. "Qiutong's life was saved by
Rufeng Sect. This one cannot possibly leave…"
Nangong Si had little experience with women. But when he saw her
delicate demeanor and the determination in her eyes, he felt as if his heart
was being squeezed. He cursed under his breath. "Ye Wangxi! Ye Wangxi—
get the hell over here! Look after her for me!"
Ye Wangxi was spattered with blood, his handsome face stained with
grime and filth. He clapped a hand around Song Qiutong's arm and said
harshly, "Go find Qin-shixiong and stick with him."
"I'm not leaving! I can still help!" she pleaded. "Young masters, I want
to stay with you."
"Ye Wangxi, make sure you protect her!"
Ye Wangxi's face darkened; upstanding gentleman that he was, he
rarely displayed such anger. "Nangong Si." The syllables of that name came
out trembling, broken. "You must have lost your mind." Then, turning his
back on the other two, he took up his sword and vaulted away, back into the
surging masses of undead.
High-level demons continued to emerge, and they cut through the
crowd like daggers slicing open the stomach of a fish and peeling off its
scales—glistening and sticky with blood, rising and falling.
It was every man for himself as the fiends surrounded the living—
these creatures wanted nothing more than to devour each and every one of
them and drag them into the Infinite Hells. Mo Ran, Xue Meng, and Shi Mei
fought back-to-back against demons on all sides, but the space they had
cleared around them shrank rapidly as the enemy pressed in. There was a wet
sound as Xue Meng sheared the arms off a fierce fiend, and its foul blood
fountained several feet into the air.
The fiends assailing them saw at once that Xue Meng was a threat, and
circled around toward Shi Mei instead. Shi Mei's hands formed a spell sign,
but his spiritual energy was being rapidly depleted, and the brightness of the
waterlight array before him flickered.
At this rate, Mo Ran knew they wouldn't be able to hold out much
longer. He made up his mind. "Shi Mei, put up a shield array. Xue Meng, get
in."
"What?" Xue Meng was immediately incensed. "You're telling me to
be a wuss?!"
"Just listen to me and get in! This isn't the time to worry what you look
like! Look around—you think we can kill this many ghosts?!"
"A-Ran," said Shi Mei, "what are you going to do?"
"Stop asking questions, just do as I said," Mo Ran softened his tone.
"It'll be all right."
The clearing around them contracted further. "Quickly," Mo Ran urged,
"there's no more time."
Shi Mei had little choice; he adjusted his hand seal to raise a layer of
blue shield array around Xue Meng and himself. When he saw the array was
complete, Mo Ran unsheathed the dart concealed in his sleeve and slashed it
across his palm, then sprinkled the array with his own blood to mark it with
his spiritual energy. His gaze dark, he called out in a low voice, "Get to
work!"
Jiangui flared bright at his words. The weapon grew in length by tens
of feet, each leaf like a sharp dagger hanging from the willow vine as it
blazed with scarlet spiritual energy. Mo Ran closed his eyes, recalling the
sight of Chu Wanning unleashing his killing technique. When he opened them
again, his eyes reflected the innumerable ghastly fiends closing in on them.
He whipped Jiangui high above his head. Sparks erupted off the vine
and rained down as Mo Ran held up his arm, his sleeve buffeted by the wind.
In that moment, his silhouette seemed to overlap with Chu Wanning's in his
mind, the two moving in perfect synchronicity.
"Wind."
A burst of force ravaged the land and stirred the very clouds above,
pulling low the sky itself.
Behind Mo Ran, Xue Meng and Shi Mei watched as an enormous light
array bloomed scarlet like a red lotus from hell and fierce gales sliced the
ground like formless blades. Jiangui whirled, a blur in Mo Ran's hand. Dust
and debris swirled into the air, and the overwhelming force pulled the fiends
into the maelstrom and ground them to mince. Chu Wanning's wide-range
killing technique, Wind. Already, Mo Ran could use it this well…
By the time the tempest calmed, the area was scoured bare.
When Mo Ran turned around, it was to the shocked expressions of Xue
Meng and Shi Mei. But he was in no mood to celebrate; he felt only that he
was far from where he needed to be. If his cultivation level now was
anywhere close to what it had once been, a fracture in the ghost realm barrier
would be a trifling matter.
"Look! Over there!" A voice suddenly shouted in the distance.
All raised their heads to see several contingents high in the sky, riding
in on swords from every horizon, each group in distinct dress and shrouded
in distinct spiritual energies.
It seemed the opening of the Heavenly Rift of the Infinite Hells had
finally spurred the sects of the upper cultivation realm to action. Their
glowing swords touched down one after another, a massive influx of
reinforcements—here were the graceful and charming personages from
Rainbell Isle, there the solemn and dignified monks of Wubei Temple, and so
on. Finally, the ten great sects had all joined the fray.
Increasingly stronger demons were crossing into this world like the
endless swarming of locusts. But with this sudden arrival of support, the
cultivators on the ground were no longer so outmatched. At the same time,
Mei Hanxue and Chu Wanning at last completed the spiritual transfer, and the
color of the barrier anchored at the cardinal directions of the town shifted
from gold to blue.
Chu Wanning left guarding the borders to Mei Hanxue and rode the
wind into the center of the battle, alighting gracefully where the fighting was
most fierce. He looked up at the rift in the sky. By now it was open wide, and
an immeasurable and terrifying evil was vaguely perceptible within.
The insane strength of this entity was practically palpable, as if it had
drunk the blood and consumed the brains of millions. The barrier needed to
be sealed now, or that great evil presently suppressed within the Infinite
Hells would break free and cross into the mortal realm.
Chu Wanning couldn't help but wonder if that was the whole point.
Was this what the person behind the scenes was after? Did he wish to unleash
some kind of great evil from hell on this world? But to what end?
"Shizun!" Shi Mei called anxiously after him.
Chu Wanning turned toward his voice.
Memories from the past life once again overlaid the present scene.
"Shizun!" Shi Mei had called for him the same way back then.
Then, too, Chu Wanning had turned toward his voice.
Shi Mei panted in the snow, covered in blood and grime, but his eyes
were firm and determined. "Shizun, are you going to mend the Heavenly
Rift?"
"Mn."
"But that… That's not just any fracture, that's a fracture into the Infinite
Hells. Shizun, how will you manage by yourself?"
Chu Wanning did not answer immediately.
"Let me help. I learned some defensive skills at Peach Blossom
Springs—I won't get in Shizun's way…"
Even now, he could almost hear that exchange that had determined life
and death so many years ago. Mo Ran's blood ran cold and his head went
numb. Without warning, he grabbed Shi Mei and pulled him behind his own
body. Then he pushed him toward Xue Meng and yelled, "Xue Ziming, keep
an eye on him! Look after him!"
Xue Meng's eyes widened. "You going somewhere, mutt?"
"I…"
The wind picked up, carrying with it the stench of blood. In the sky,
there was no flurry of snowflakes; at least some things were different from
the last lifetime.
Mo Ran's gaze landed on Shi Mei's lost and helpless figure. He felt
his heart clench but then fill with relief. This barrier could not be mended by
Chu Wanning alone. But save for his three disciples, no one else was
sufficiently familiar with his spiritual cultivation to work together with him
in rapport. One of them had to go.
The wind rushed fiercely through the battlefield, sweeping across
thousands of miles of desperate slaughter. Mo Ran braced himself, then
pulled Shi Mei into his arms. It was the first time he had ever embraced him
like this so openly and directly. He held him for a breath, and then abruptly
shoved him away.
Shi Mei. This time, I'm afraid the one who dies will have to be me.
"I'll help Shizun seal the barrier," Mo Ran declared in a tone that
brooked no argument. He narrowed his eyes, directing another deep,
meaningful gaze at Shi Mei.
Suddenly, he didn't care what others might think, didn't care that Xue
Meng was right there, didn't care that he might be rejected. He had waited
two lifetimes, loved for two lifetimes, and now he was leaving, possibly
never to return. Standing in the ferocious wind, he wanted to say a few final
words to his beloved.
"Shi Mei, actually, I…" But as he opened his mouth to speak, his
words were drowned out by the howls of vicious fiends. That fleeting
impulse, boiling hot as lava, grew cold in that space of a moment. In the end,
it fizzled out.
"A-Ran, did you want to say something?"
A reflection from his past life flitted across Mo Ran's eyes: he saw
Shi Mei's gentle smile from behind that half-raised curtain. How cruel it had
been. It had stayed with him all his life, even until death. It was everywhere
he looked.
Mo Ran grinned, the rims of his eyes a little red. "Never mind, good
things can't be said twice."
Shi Mei said, "You…"
"I'm off to go help Shizun. When I come back…if I still feel like
telling you…" His dimples were deep, his gaze filled with love. "I'll tell you
then." With that, he turned and sped toward Chu Wanning.
Shi Mei wouldn't die this time. Not in front of him, at least. Mo Ran
suddenly felt that the sky was more boundless and the ground more vast. He
imagined that the figure before him, white robes billowing, would be the end
point of this reborn life of his.
His shizun, who held the world in his heart.
As Shi Mei lay dying, for the sake of completing the repair of the
barrier, for the sake of purging the rampaging fiends, Chu Wanning had
ruthlessly chosen to turn his back on him. This time, the one to mend the
barrier with Chu Wanning would be Mo Ran. Chu Wanning despised him so
much, disliked him so much; there was no way he'd cast aside his esteemed
reputation as the Beidou Immortal to spare a thought for the life or death of
his insignificant self.
"Shizun." Mo Ran came to a stop in front of him, Jiangui glowing in
his hand. "This barrier is hard to repair. Let me help."
The situation was dire; Chu Wanning shot him a wordless glance: tacit
assent. He leapt up to stand at the highest point of the Chen Manor, Mo Ran
following at his heels. "Set the Discernment Barrier," Chu Wanning said.
Mo Ran moved in accord with him, following his instructions. One
turned to the left and one to the right; the tips of their fingers glowed with the
seal of the Discernment Barrier as they lifted their hands to the air in concert.
"Invoke!"
Spiritual energy streamed from their bodies at the invocation. The pair
worked as one, each holding down a vital grounding point of the array, and
used their surging power to form a scarlet-gold barrier.
As the barrier expanded outward, any demonic fiend it touched
shrieked as if burned and fled back into the eye of the ghost realm. The
barrier grew clearer and brighter by the second, and below their feet rose a
pair of coiled dragon platforms composed of spiritual energy, which lifted
the two high into the skies above the town.
Before the glaring gold and scarlet light of the barrier, the ghost eye
gradually began to close. Yet at the same time, the resentful spirits within the
rift grew more frantic, refusing to yield. With each inch of closure, the
resentful energy spilling from the fissure intensified, and by the time the edge
of the barrier was mere miles from the rift, the corruption emanating from its
depths was almost a physical thing.
Mo Ran's reborn body felt as if a heavy weight had settled over his
shoulders, like an immense rock weighing a thousand tons pressed against his
chest. He struggled to breathe. Across from him, Chu Wanning's spiritual
energy was strong and steady, streaming into the barrier without cease.
One inch, another. The gales whipping around them were thick with
corruption, intensifying and converging on their position. Mo Ran felt as if
numberless daggers were digging into his flesh and bones.
"Shizun…" As his consciousness began to fade, memories from the
past again flitted before his eyes:
He saw Shi Mei and Chu Wanning working together to repair the
barrier. It was mere seconds before the worlds of yin and yang would be
separated once more. The vicious ghosts, soon to again be deprived of yang
energy, saw that Shi Mei's side was much weaker; they clustered together
and charged toward Shi Mei as one. In an instant, Shi Mei, who had been
doing his utmost to maintain the balance of the barrier, was pierced through.
Now this scene played out again, almost move for move. Only this
time, the one whose heart was run through by a thousand ghosts was Mo Ran.
A cascade of demonic fiends broke through the heavy cloud cover and
punched through Mo Ran's chest in a flash. Red swam before Mo Ran's eyes.
It took him a moment to register that it was his own blood bursting from his
chest.
Drowning in the suffocating stream, he strained to turn toward Chu
Wanning, only to see the man's pristine white robes and coldly impassive
face turned away, not even sparing him half a glance.
Resentment flooded his chest. It settled into deep hatred.
Mo Ran fell from the coiled dragon platform, blood seeping from the
corners of his lips, chest dyed a deep crimson. The fall took only a moment,
but it felt like an eternity, like a drowning person sinking slowly to the
bottom of the sea, never again to hear the soft whispers of the living world.
Chu Wanning hadn't lifted single finger on his behalf. He hadn't tried
to stop the attack. He couldn't even be bothered to look.
As Mo Ran fell, his scarlet spiritual energy dissipated. And just as in
the previous lifetime, Chu Wanning chose to pour the remainder of his power
into the portion of the barrier that Mo Ran wasn't able to mend, and, by dint
of his strength alone, forced the barrier shut with a thunderous bang.
The fiends left on this side of the gate, cut off from the yin energy of
the ghost realm, fell immediately into a mad rampage against the cultivators.
They mowed through innumerous living souls in mere moments and utterly
annihilated the formations of several sects.
Chu Wanning descended. When Mo Ran fell, a layer of light had
materialized beneath the coiled dragon pillar to cushion his fall. But his chest
had been pierced straight through, and blood pooled on the ground beneath
him, just as Shi Mei's had back then. Chu Wanning beat back the fiends that
rushed toward Mo Ran and, with a backhanded wave, dropped a protective
barrier around him.
"Shizun…" Mo Ran, behind him, murmured quietly. "Are you
leaving…" He coughed up blood, but a grin spread across his face. "Are you
leaving again?"
Outside the flowing golden barrier, that person continued to stand with
his back to him. Mo Ran opened his mouth, but his throat was filled with the
taste of iron. "Chu Wanning, are you made of wood? Do you even know what
it's like to feel sad, to be selfish? Do you… Chu Wanning… Chu Wanning…"
Mo Ran's vision blurred. He was covered in wounds from the battle.
Blood streamed from a cut on his forehead and flowed into his eyes, and as
he threw his head back and laughed wildly into the skies above, laughed as if
he had gone mad, bloodied tears slid down his face. His voice broke on a
sob. "Chu Wanning, turn around! Look at me…are you really going to
leave…"
Won't you look at me one last time. I'm dying. Back then, when it
was Shi Mei, you at least spared him a glance.
You… Do you truly…dislike me this much? Look down on me this
much? Why else would you refuse to look at me, just one last time? Why
won't you turn around?
"Shizun…" His eyes brimmed with blood and tears. The last thing he
saw through the golden barrier was the white-robed back of that lone figure
as he strode away.
To go suppress demons.
In the end, it turned out that in that man's heart, there was no one less
important than Mo Weiyu.