V2C76

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Zhu Yan snapped awake in a flash, her entire body chilled to the bone. In front of her eyes there was a cloud of soft and blurred dots of light. A hand rested on her forehead, pressing there firmly – where was this place? She tried to sit up, but realized that her entire body was unable to move.

“Alas, you are really a restless child…”

She struggled desperately, unable to break free through the invisible bindings around her, when suddenly a voice rang in her ears, low and old, with a smoky and intoxicating mood, “I am an old bone, I’m too aged to bear your torment, so I can only seal you up for the time being.”

Who? Zhu Yan couldn’t turn her head, she could only struggle to turn her gaze, and out of the corner of her eye she finally caught a glimpse of a black robe, and the hand sticking out of it was withered like wood, holding a pure black jade slip. The Grand Master? In that instant, she recognized the other person and suddenly awakened as if from a dream.

After the initial moment of confusion had passed, everything sprang back to life from her memory in an instant. The events of that most dreadful day came to the surface, sweeping across her in a single frame, causing her whole body to tremble like a dry leaf in the wind – yes, now she remembered what happened: Yuan was dead, and so was the Master!

Her life had been shattered to pieces and could no longer be put back together. Where was the Grand Master taking her now, after emerging at the last moment on the underground in the cloudy court of the Star Ocean?

“This is the temple at the top of the Jialan White Pagoda, where no one but I can enter at will.” As if reading directly from her mind, the Grand Master replied calmly, “You are too weak and have been unconscious for three days and three nights – time waits for no one, I can only urge you to wake up as soon as possible.”

What? This was the legendary temple of the White Pagoda of Jialan? She couldn’t move her body, so she could only roll her eyes and look around – her vision was gradually clearing up, yet before her eyes it was still pitch black, with only dots of light floating around. There were countless candle flames inside the temple, shining as brightly as the stars.

The glorious and esoteric interior of the Temple of the White Pagoda enshrines the huge dual statues of the Twin Gods: the ancient legend of Yunhuang says that the God of Harmonic Heaven used his right hand when creating Yunhuang and would use his left hand to destroy the prototype if he was not completely satisfied with the creation.

After creating the heavens and the earth, the Heavenly God exhausted all his strength and collapsed to the ground to die. In the place where the god fell, a lake stretched over ten thousand miles, which is now known as the Mirror Lake. From the body of the God of Heaven were born a pair of twins, each inheriting the two powers of the God of Heaven: Creation, and Destruction, thereby, the Right Hand of God and the Left Hand of the Devil.

Those strange twin siblings with their supreme power dominated the flourishing days of Yunhuang Land. For ages, their powers have been in delicate balance, fluctuating from one another as the cycles of the sun and moon.

At this moment, the Twin Statues of Gods, towering ten feet high, were overlooking the empty temple, the God of Creation holding a lotus flower in one hand and extending the other palm flatly upwards, symbolizing growth; the God of Destruction was wielding a Heavenly Cleansing Long Sword in one hand, with the palm of the other hand downwards, symbolizing destruction. The black pupils were peaceful and the golden eyes were radiant, like the sun and moon, as they looked down upon the empty temple.

Above the main hall there was unexpectedly a transparent vaulted ceiling, with fine arched ribs interwoven into an intricate totem, with the stars and moon arrayed. Between the arched ribs were inlaid lenticular mirrors of an unknown size, made out of huge crystals, so clear and transparent that it was possible to see the stars and the moon directly from the interior!

At this moment, she was lying on the altar of the temple, the vault of heaven shrouding the top of her head. What was this Grand Master trying to do by bringing her here?

“I witnessed your dream just now… So, you once saved Shi Ying’s life in the Cangwu Abyss?” The Grand Master looked at her, his voice surprisingly softer, and said with a sigh, “One repayment, one drink, one peck, all are destined…”

“Why don’t you… just kill me? Don’t you want to avenge my Master’s death?” She could no longer bear such kind tone, and with that last scene flashing incessantly before her eyes, she gradually lost her composure and shouted out of breath in despair and pain, “I… I killed Master! You come and kill me!”

The Grand Master stared coldly at her frozen figure: “Do you think you can just die and be done with it?”

“What else do you want from me then?” She glanced at the Grand Master in disbelief.

“What else do I want?” The Grand Master looked at her with a sharp glare and spoke one word at a time, “Young princess of the Red Clan, do you know that you have committed a heinous crime? How dare you commit regicide, collude with the rebels, and kill the emperor’s firstborn son?! It’s by far not enough for you to be executed on your own, your entire clan must be beheaded with you as well!”

What? Zhu Yan shuddered violently, as if a basin of icy water had been poured on her head. The moment Yuan died, her mind went blank, driven by a fierce hatred and anger, and she chose revenge without hesitation. Yet at this moment she had finally calmed down and realized what a terrible thing she had done – she had murdered the Great Priest of Kongsang, the firstborn son of the Emperor!

Such a crime was more than sufficient to cause the blood of the Red Clan to flow into a river! She froze in place, her face flushed white and her whole body shivering faintly.

With a slight movement of her fingers, a broken blade flew into her hand with a swish, the very same murdering weapon she had used to stab Shi Ying in the chest – this nine-ringed golden-backed machete was originally the Red King’s weapon, with the family emblem of the Red King’s House cast on its back and stained with Shi Ying’s blood.

The Grand Master looked at her coldly and said, “Once this sword is handed over to the emperor, you know what the consequences will be.”

“No!” She finally screamed out in fear, “Do not!”

“Are you afraid now?” The Grand Master looked at her, a sharp sneer appearing at the corners of his mouth, “Little princess of the Red Clan, you grew up unafraid of the sky and earth… until this moment, when you finally remembered that you still have parents and clan members?”

“…” Zhu Yan shivered violently, and only after a long time could she speak in a hoarse voice, begging the old man, “One person does what one should do! I killed my Master, you can… split me into pieces by five horses or chop me up by a thousand cuts, but please, don’t bring my parents and clansmen into this!”

“That’s easy for you to say.” The Grand Master laughed coldly, but did not budge, “You are trying to exchange one life for another, but the laws of Kongsang are in force, where do you think you can make the call?”

Zhu Yan trembled, her face turning ashy as death with her eyes raising to look at the old man.

“What do you… want from me?” She asked in a trembling voice, “You must have your plans for not killing me and bringing me here, don’t you?”

“Quite a clever child.” The Grand Master looked at her, and his otherwise icy tone suddenly eased a little, “Actually, I know that you can’t be blamed entirely for all of this. You didn’t kill Shi Ying, did you? There is no one in this world who can kill a person like him – he was willing to die, wasn’t he?”

Zhu Yan shuddered, unprepared to see that this old man had even gained insight into such a detail, and in her heart, she didn’t know whether to be happy or sad for a moment. After biting her lips for a long time, she nodded and whispered:

“Yes! My Master, he… suddenly withdrew the spell at the very end of the encounter! I… didn’t expect that to happen at all…”

By the end of the sentence, her voice choked. The Grand Master fell silent, his pale hand trembling slightly, “Indeed.”

After a long pause, the old man murmured, “Shi Ying grew up as a deep-minded child, and even I was unable to discern exactly what he was thinking.”

He let out a long sigh and turned his head to look at the cold moon on the firmament above, “The last time I saw him was over a month ago – the day he suddenly told me that he wanted to resign from his position as a Great Priest.”

Zhu Yan was stunned, “I… how come I didn’t know?”

“You didn’t know?” The Grand Master froze for a moment, looking at this bright and clueless eighteen-year-old girl, suddenly understanding, and his eyes filled with a bitter smile, “Yes, of course you wouldn’t know – your heart was somewhere else, so naturally you couldn’t see anything.”

Seeing Zhu Yan’s silence, the Grand Master could not help but sigh sorrowfully, “What a sinful fate… Shi Ying’s temper is practically identical to his mother’s!”

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