CHAPTER 19 Once we get out, let us live our own respective lives.

Those words made Fu Changling felt like he was in a sorry state.

For a moment, he didn’t know how he should be answering. After mumbling for half a day did he finally say, “I’m just afraid of him.”

Yanming smiled. “And no one, except yourself, knows more clearly why you were afraid.”

Speaking, Yanming tilted his head to look at the moon hanging in the sky. Then he raised his cup and looked at Fu Changling before earnestly saying, “Brother Fu, we don’t know whether we will live or die in the battle tomorrow. Here, I dedicate this final cup of wine to you.”

Listening to these words, Fu Changling looked at Yanming, who was staring at him with a clear gaze.

He was still young, and he had a bright future. Fu Changling couldn’t help himself smiling. He lifted his cup. “I dedicate this cup of wine to you, as well, but rest assured. Tomorrow, you will live.”

“Is Brother Fu so confident?”

Fu Changling momentarily paused. He looked at Yanming in front of him, and suddenly he felt that this person’s eyes seemed like a depthless vortex that he’d found his entire person being sucked into. He felt a little lost, but it was only momentarily before his mind cleared again.

“Of course.”

Fu Changling and Yanming clinked their cups. He didn’t know why he involuntarily repeated the words Yanming had told him before back then, “Since I promise that I’d bring you out of here, I will keep it.”

“Then, I will trust in Brother Fu.”

As Yanming spoke, he drank to his fill with Fu Changling.

After they finished drinking, Yanming placed the wine cup down and rose to his feet. Fu Changling watched Yanming leave while he drank and stared at the moon hanging by the edge of the sky, as well as the person below cast in its light.

That person wasn’t wearing his hair in a guan tonight. His hair was half-tied at the back of his head, making him appear more tolerant.

As Fu Changling looked at that person, he felt like he’d fallen into a trance.

He seemed to have returned to the Heavenly Palace of Hongmeng many years ago. He was the Leader of the Immortal Alliance and Qin Yan had been dead for many years.

He couldn’t fall asleep after Qin Yan’s death. The only method for himself to come to peace was to go to the places Qin Yan had been to before and look for traces of anything that he’s left.

He remembered back in that year, when he’d finished rebuilding the Heavenly Palace of Hongmeng and came to Qin Yan’s sleeping chambers, he found that his sleeping chambers were very cold. There were no walls on its sides as it’d been chiselled into a huge moon-like arch door[13]. When the moon rose into the sky, one could see it hanging high through the moon palace’s door. Silver starlight was scattered across the black floors and made this room glow in a beauty so cold, just like their owner.

On the first night he came, he slept in Qin Yan’s chambers. In the dead of the night he heard sounds of living people and so he opened his eyes only to see Qin Yan sitting on the moon arch door, quietly meditating.

He daren’t make a noise. He was simply looking at Qin Yan’s figure, unmoving.

Until the day brightened up again, he opened his eyes, only to realize that his tears had already dried up.

At this moment, as he was looking at Qin Yan from afar as if in his dream, he suddenly felt a sense of being lost. He wasn’t sure whether he was truly reborn, or that it was simply a dream.

The other person noticed his gaze and he turned, his gaze coldly falling onto him. Finally, he raised his cup and acknowledged him.

That gesture stunned Fu Changling, and then he smiled, while he, too, raised the cup in his hand and then drank his fill with Qin Yan.

The both of them returned to their own rooms. Fu Changling slept on the small couch while Qin Yan slept on the bed. Yanming was in the next room. Fu Changling couldn’t fall asleep. He looked at the moonlight and only after a long time, he said, “Qin Yan.”

Qin Yan responded to him through the darkness. Fu Changling slowly said, “Actually, I shouldn’t be afraid of you, right?”

Qin Yan remained silent and heard Fu Changling say, “I have no reason to be afraid of you. This is only the first time we met, right?”

After a long time, Qin Yan slowly said, “Yes.”

“Qin Yan.” Hearing Qin Yan’s voice, Fu Changling felt a little sleepy. Slowly, he said, “Once we leave the Hidden Realm of Xuanji, we will go separate ways. When the time comes, let’s part and live our own respective lives.”

After a long time, Qin Yan said nothing. Fu Changling slowly drifted into sleep. As he bounced in and out of sleep, he heard that cold and icy voice answering him, “Alright.”

Fu Changling slept until the morning. Qin Yan and Yanming were already waiting for him.

He yawned and got up. He’d just finished washing and heard Wu Sisi’s voice coming from afar, “My darling Fu[14] ~ My darling Fu, are you up yet?!”

This voice made Fu Changling tremble, shocking him that he’d dropped the cloth back into the basin of water. Wu Sisi flamboyantly stomped into the room. She saw Qin Yan and Yanming, who was long prepared as they sat down meditating, and Fu Changling who had just finished washing. She took two steps forward and pinched Fu Changling’s ear, gritting her teeth and said, “My darling Fu ~ how early you’ve woken up!”

“Ouch, ouch, ouch.” Fu Changling quickly tugged Wu Sisi’s hand away and quickly said, “Better be punctual than early! This, no, I just got up the moment you came. Isn’t that great? What have I delayed?”

“Thankfully you delayed nothing.” Wu Sisi suppressed her voice low. “Otherwise, this old woman is going to hack you to pieces.”

Seething painfully, Fu Changling said, “How did Ming Xiu Zhenjun stand you?”

Wu Sisi coldly snorted. She turned and, with an arm on her waist, she loudly said, “Be quick. Otherwise, we won’t be able to be in time for the sacrificial ritual!”

Wu Sisi urged them. The group had nothing much to prepare. Fu Changling hid the God’s Massacre Array in his sleeve and blended into a group of people heading towards the sacrificial altar.

Almost all the townspeople had come out. The moment they exited into the main alley, they could see the streets filled with bustling streams of people. Fu Changling, Qin Yan, and Yanming were walking together. Fu Changling, who stood in the middle, spoke, “Are both of you clear on what you need to do later?”

This matter wasn’t difficult. Both of them replied, “Clear.”

Fu Changling felt reassured and the group followed the bustling stream of people to squeeze their way into the perimeter of the sacrificial altar.

The perimeter looked similar compared to the time they had come. They were surrounded by wooden cages, but the cultivators they’d seen in them previously had turned into white bones.

Qin Yan and Yanming furrowed their brows at this sight. Fu Changling found it surprising. He tapped the fan on his palm and studied the situation around him.

More and more people came. When the last person entered the great courtyard, the doors closed. Not long after, there were faint sounds of drums coming from the perimeter and everyone sank into silence. After that, a man and a woman walked up the sacrificial altar. They were wearing wide and airy robes with colourful feathers on their heads. There were also bells on their feet, ringing loudly as they walked.

They walked up the sacrificial altar with propriety, then performed a systematic dance in accordance with the singing voices of the four priests.

The dances performed by these people were very different from the dances of Yunze. Fu Changling watched their dance and found it familiar, but before he could come back to his senses, he heard the thundering strike of a drum as if a ray of light had torn the skies apart. A person in black wearing a bucktooth mask dropped down through the light.

Once that man appeared, everyone present knelt down quickly, carrying almost fanatic expressions on themselves. They bowed their heads repetitively and called that person’s name as they worshipped him, “May the Venerable One be blessed with a thousand years of blessings! May the Venerable One be blessed with a thousand years of blessings[15]!”

Fu Changling and the others were standing amid the crowd all the time. They stood out but no one noticed them. All their attention was on the ‘Venerable One’ who has shown up as they repetitively called his name.

The Venerable One fell onto the sacrificial altar. Fu Changling edged closer to Qin Yan and flipped his fan open, then he whispered, “Say, do you think this person was crafted from the likes of Ye Lan?”

“Stop being presumptuous!” Qin Yan couldn’t help himself seething at Fu Changling when he heard him say ‘Le Yan’.

Le Yan was the most well-respected Venerate Sword of Yunze. A sword cultivator like Qin Yan indeed could not accept Fu Changling’s insolence of calling him by his name.

Fu Changling shrugged and straightened his back, airing himself at a leisurely pace with his golden fan.

Wu Sisi had already knelt among the people. Fu Changling was the only one standing as he tilted his head to look at the Venerable One who stood on the sacrificial altar.

This Venerable One stretched his arms apart and billowed in a thick, strong voice, “May the strength of the gods—”

The people who were kneeling on the ground all raised their heads up and spread their arms apart. They tilted their heads to look at the sky and followed his lead, “May the strength of the gods—”

Fu Changling froze as he watched the behaviours of these people and couldn’t help holding tightly onto the little fan in his hand.

He was familiar with the sight of this. He’s seen it before.

“Bathe in all walking life…” Fu Changling couldn’t help himself speaking the next sentence.

At these words, Qin Yan instinctively turned to him and at the same time, the Venerable One also raised his voice, howling towards the sky, “Bathe in all walking life!”

“Bathe in all walking life...”

“May the strength of the gods bathe in all walking life…”

The sound of prayers in the plaza tried to outvoice one another. Fu Changling’s brows knitted tightly.

This was the scene he’d seen back in that year when news reached his grasp, the night where he led a team to wipe out all the demonic cultivators of the Unsullied Palace and captured Qin Yan.

This was the sight that happened back in the Unsullied Palace. All the demonic cultivators were kneeling on the ground and performing a prayer similar to what these people were doing.

Fu Changling’s heart quickened. The green veins on his head have involuntarily become visible.

The technique that Shangguan Hong had used, Qin Yan’s arrival, and the strange incantations on Shangguan Yuemin’s back, and at this moment, a sight that is similar to the prayer rituals he’d seen in the Avici…

At this moment, Fu Changling felt a strange instinct tingling. He felt as if there was a vast and shapeless net above them, and that he was this net’s prey, being observed by a spider.

Fu Changling couldn’t hear anything from around him. His mind had been incessantly thinking of recent events. He felt that he seemed to have missed something, as if there was something slowly spreading in his ignorance.

As it spoke, Fu Changling and Qin Yan felt like they were being controlled by an invisible force. That force was holding him, Qin Yan, Yanming, and a few other cultivators from out of town, tossing them onto the sacrificial altar. And then the Venerable One asked, “Non-natives, do you think you have the capability of leaving this place?”

After he’d finished asking, a ray of light clasped down onto the cultivator nearest to the Venerable One. Before that cultivator could speak, he emitted a pained shriek as he fell to the ground, being “sucked” into it in a strange and distorted shape.

He was struggling frantically as if he wanted to get up from the surface of the ground. However, a great many pale-white arms had reached out from the ground and grabbed onto him, pulling him into its depths.

That was what happened to the green slab of the sacrificial altar: an entire person being pulled by those arms bit by bit into the ground.

That cultivator was shrieking horribly. Qin Yan’s expression changed. He gripped his sword tightly as he turned to look at Wu Sisi among the group of people.

“Save me! Save me!”

That cultivator was being pulled into the ground bit by bit. It was also at that moment Yanming snapped. He frantically drew his sword and aimed it at the Venerable One, shouting as he did, “Die, you wretched thief!”

Fu Changling saw Yanming rush out and his breath stopped. He instinctively moved, only to see a flutter of wide sleeves shielding in front of him. Fu Changling’s movement froze. Qin Yan stared at him and all he said was, “Trust me,”

After he finished speaking, Fu Changling watched Qin Yan and Yanming’s rear. He inhaled deeply, turned, and leapt into the mess of people.

Trust him.

Fu Changling decided to take the gamble this time. Trust Qin Yan.

Author’s Notes:

[Small Threatre]

Mo Shu Bai: As the story goes now, what do you think the main theme is? You can discuss it from aspects of the plot, the emotions, or any others.

Fu Changling: Only one thing was clear.

Mo Shu Bai: And what is that???

Fu Changling: My wife is the prettiest.

Mo Shu Bai: Simply with what you’ve said, I do not regret my outline one bit.