novelraw Chapter 92 : The Stone Bridge of Five Hundred Years
Chapter 92 : The Stone Bridge of Five Hundred Years
Chapter 92: The Stone Bridge of Five Hundred Years
“What… are you doing?”
Mei Zhao Zhao abruptly opened her eyes, and it seemed as if the scent of the Nether Lord still lingered in her nose.
The Nether Lord’s voice continued to echo beside her ears, even blurring her vision a little, but once the dizziness subsided, she found herself staring in disbelief at the scene before her.
What did she see?
The Little Ancestor of the Cihang Palace had taken off her shoes and socks, placing her delicate bare feet in a man’s lap.
It was an exquisitely delicate foot—round, white, and adorable. The pink toes resembled tender lotus buds or the soft petals of early spring peach blossoms, and the smooth arch looked like a fine piece of pastry that made one instinctively want to draw closer.
Lu Changyuan, his expression blank, gently patted Su Youwan’s little foot away.
He was rather perplexed.
He had only asked if she could alter his fate, and in response, the silver-haired girl had doffed her Daoist robe and placed her soft foot into his lap.
Su Youwan, whose foot had been patted away, showed no anger. Her expression remained as calm and serene as ever, as though the one who had just performed such a shocking act had been someone else entirely.
She smoothed out her pale-moon inner robe unhurriedly, her voice steady and without ripples. “Other things… can only be done after marriage.”
Lu Changyuan’s eyelid twitched. “What do you mean by that?”
“To take on your scent—to establish a bond—is the only way to alter fate.”
Su Youwan said, “Youwan does not yet possess the ability to conceal another’s destiny at will. If Youwan is to conceal Young Master Lu’s fate as her own, then Young Master Lu must share enough of a connection with Youwan.”
Lu Changyuan mused aloud, “Then why did you put your foot over?”
He had never studied the Destined Heavenly Dao, nor seen anyone cultivate it. His understanding of it was limited, so whatever Su Youwan said, he could only take at face value.
Su Youwan replied matter-of-factly, “Aside from the things that can only be done after marriage, Youwan does not mind other forms of contact. Youwan saw you and Miss Xia in the room that day—”
Lu Changyuan quickly interrupted her, “Enough, don’t say another word.”
So that day, you weren’t merely playing the flute outside the door—you saw Xia Lianxue’s little dance too, didn’t you!
Mei Zhao Zhao understood their conversation, but she didn’t speak—only bit her lip.
Help Lu Changyuan kill Xiao Qingfeng.
How to help?
You Nether Lord, tell me the method at least!
I’m just a Saintess of the Pleasure Sect—how could I possibly help?
If you want me to use dance or charm, I have learned from my sect’s manuals. The Pleasure Sect has quite a few of those. Surely I’m more skilled than those cold-hearted nuns from the Cihang Palace.
But you ask me to help… no, even the earlier matter, I can’t help with that either!
Mei Zhao Zhao forcefully suppressed her thoughts, looked toward Lu Changyuan, and softly said, “I just—”
Bang bang bang!
The door was suddenly knocked upon, cutting Mei Zhao Zhao’s words short in her throat.
Lu Changyuan narrowed his eyes.
Someone knocking at this hour?
“Wait,” Mei Zhao Zhao tried to speak, but found that Lu Changyuan had already left the room and approached the door.
Severed Thought had been drawn, and the power along the sword’s edge was quietly building.
Lu Changyuan yanked the door open.
Before the person outside could speak, his sword had already struck out.
Slash!
Flesh mixed with black mist fell to the ground with a dull thud.
“Lord Yu, no need to be so hot-tempered.”
The man spoke with an easy smile, as though it wasn’t his own head that had just been severed.
He bent down, calmly picked up his head from the floor, and casually pressed it back onto his neck.
Lu Changyuan narrowed his eyes. “Xiao Hai?”
Standing at the door was none other than Xiao Hai—the very same who had exploded before him earlier into a single drop of blood.
“It’s me, Lord Yu. His Majesty wishes to see you.”
Lu Changyuan frowned. “What kind of state are you in now?”
Xiao Hai smiled. He wrapped an arm around the slender waist of the woman beside him. Her face was tinged pink, and she leaned obediently against his aged chest. “Thanks to our ancestors’ blessings, even a useless man like me has attained immortality.”
Immortality?
Lu Changyuan frowned deeper.
There was no true immortality in this world only lingering existence at best.
Xiao Hai had been reborn through Xiao Qingfeng’s Transformative Life Technique. The same must be true for Wang Lian beside him.
Yet, in truth, neither of them could be called living beings anymore. Whether these two were the original Xiao Hai and Wang Lian was debatable—they were most likely spirits wearing their skins.
Thinking this, Lu Changyuan struck again. The sword’s intent was absolute—and deadly.
In moments, Xiao Hai and Wang Lian lost their human forms. Chunks of flesh hit the floor, releasing a nauseating stench.
Then, a sudden change occurred.
Thin threads of black mist seeped from every severed piece, merging into a surging dark mass. Soon, a black sphere formed, split in two, and reshaped itself into two human figures. Their features emerged gradually from the darkness.
Wang Lian and Xiao Hai once again stood before Lu Changyuan.
Xiao Hai still showed no anger or resentment, only smiled and said, “With Lord Yu’s strength, if you were to serve our ancestor, you could become his trusted general. As long as you abandon your title…”
Bang.
Lu Changyuan shut the door.
He couldn’t be bothered to listen.
To think that the Transformative Life Dao could possess such power—when Xiao Qingfeng had just revived, he could only create black spirits using the Nether Kingdom’s laws and the Nether Lord’s Death Dao. Yet now, he could even give them physical form.
Su Youwan stood by the door, having removed her lotus crown. Her silver hair cascaded softly down, seeming to glow faintly in the darkness.
“Those two?”
Lu Changyuan shook his head. “Merely puppets created through the Transformative Life Technique. With Xiao Qingfeng dead, they too will die. And unlike the Nether Lord’s spirits, they lack true self-awareness. In essence, they’re Xiao Qingfeng’s external incarnations.”
To call that ‘immortality’.
What a joke.
The Nether Lord’s Dao was far superior. When the Nether River opened, the departed spirits could still sense a trace of warmth from their past lives, and from rotting flesh, new life would be born.
Death leading to rebirth past death giving rise to future life that was true reincarnation.
Lu Changyuan cast aside his tangled thoughts, still pondering where the Nether Lord was.
Just then, Mei Zhao Zhao emerged, still clad in her black robe. “At least listen to me, will you? I just saw the Nether Lord in my dream.”
Lu Changyuan’s head jerked up. “Continue.”
“I was just about to say.”
“Did the Nether Lord tell you where she was?”
“No.”
“Then did she tell you how to kill Xiao Qingfeng?”
Mei Zhao Zhao blinked, then shook her head.
Lu Changyuan took a deep breath. “Then what did the Nether Lord tell you?”
“The Nether Lord told me to help you kill Xiao Qingfeng.”
Tensed.
His fists clenched tight.
Lu Changyuan felt his composure was still lacking or perhaps he was simply more prone to anger after losing the Supreme Pure-Spirit Forget-Immortal Technique.
“Then, Miss Mei, could you tell me—how exactly can you help me kill Xiao Qingfeng?”
“I don’t know.”
Lu Changyuan waved his hand, sighing, then turned to Su Youwan. “At the very least, this proves the Nether Lord isn’t dead. She must have left something behind in the Nether Kingdom.”
But how could that be?
If the Nether Lord truly had left something, not to mention Lu Changyuan’s century there even Xiao Qingfeng, who had been a spirit for nearly four hundred years, hadn’t found it.
To seize the Nether Kingdom, Xiao Qingfeng must kill Yu.
Lu Changyuan narrowed his eyes. He had already guessed that the title Yu held great significance—but he couldn’t understand why the Nether Lord had bestowed it upon him.
He thought back carefully to all that had happened in the Nether Kingdom—
Still, he found nothing.
Mei Zhao Zhao, however, murmured as if half asleep, “Five hundred years of wind, five hundred years of sun, five hundred years of rain— the Nether Lord will eventually return.”
Lu Changyuan snapped his head back. “What did you say?”
Mei Zhao Zhao was startled.
“I heard that when I first entered the Nether Kingdom, and just now the Nether Lord seemed to say the same thing in my dream.”
Lu Changyuan had stayed here for a hundred years and had never once heard anyone say those words.
All the spirits’ prayers were that the Nether Lord would eventually return, as if the earlier part of the phrase had been deliberately hidden.
Mei Zhao Zhao smoothed her black robe; even with the heavy garment, her lithe figure could not be fully concealed.
“What’s wrong with that line?”
Lu Changyuan grabbed Mei Zhao Zhao’s shoulder sharply; the girl trembled. “Where did you hear it?”
“The first time was on the stone bridge outside the city; the second time was just now.”
Stone bridge?
The silver-haired girl’s voice had been ethereal: “The legend says that long ago a scholar saw a tofu-selling girl on the road and fell hopelessly in love. He went before the Buddha and the Buddha asked him, ‘How much do you like that girl?’”
Lu Changyuan continued, “The scholar answered, ‘I am willing to become a stone bridge five hundred years of wind, five hundred years of sun, five hundred years of rain if only she would once walk across me.’”
“The scholar became the stone bridge and endured fifteen hundred years of loneliness. He gained the chance to meet the girl; they arranged to meet beneath the bridge, but that day a torrential rain came. The scholar waited in vain; when the appointed hour passed and the girl had not come, the scholar clung to the bridge and drowned.”
Mei Zhao Zhao stared at the two as they echoed the tale. “I told you I couldn’t bear those stories about the waxing and waning of the moon.”
The silver-haired girl lifted her birdcage; a bodhisattva-like air drifted from her.
Her voice was hollow and timeless: “Another legend says that long, long ago there was a girl born into a wealthy family, beautiful enough that those who came to propose would trample her threshold. Yet she loved a poor scholar who visited the temple fair. She went before the Buddha and the Buddha asked her, ‘How much do you love that scholar?’”
Su Youwan glanced at Lu Changyuan.
Lu Changyuan could only say, “The girl answered, ‘I am willing to become a stone stele—five hundred years of wind, five hundred years of sun, five hundred years of rain—if only he would occasionally pass before me and see me.’”
“The girl became the stele and endured fifteen hundred years of solitude. She gained the opportunity to meet the scholar, but she misheard the time. On the day she came, a torrential rain fell, and she heard that the scholar had drowned, clutching the stone bridge.”
Su Youwan spoke softly, “She also saw a tofu-selling girl by the bridge standing in the crowd with her betrothed. The Buddha told her, ‘That is the girl the scholar loved; he waited for her for fifteen hundred years.’”
Mei Zhao Zhao was dumbfounded. “What a rotten story—what happened next?”
Lu Changyuan waved his hand, “Afterwards the girl said, ‘I think I’m more worthy of him. He is devoted; I too have waited in vain,’ so the girl leapt and threw herself into the river.”
“What rotten stories—you two love telling such trash!” Mei Zhao Zhao snapped. “Does Cihang Palace listen to these every day?”
Unexpectedly, Su Youwan merely shook her head.
“Our palace honors Cihang, not the Buddha. If a disciple truly loved someone, she would not foolishly wait—she’d bind the person and bring him back herself.”
Lu Changyuan pretended not to hear.
“The Nether River is trembling.”
He turned his head again. “Third Royal Highness, perhaps we still need to establish some contact with you.”
Mei Zhao Zhao came back to herself with a start; she had just heard, as if in her ear, the Nether Lord’s chant again. She touched the black robe on her body and found it still there, and only then did she breathe easier.
Lu Changyuan asked puzzledly, “Why do you insist on wearing a black robe all the time? Are you ugly and ashamed to show your face?”
“You’re the ugly one!” Mei Zhao Zhao snorted. “If I removed this robe and let you see my face, you’d probably pounce. I’d never be able to beat you, so I don’t.”
Such confidence. Such repulsiveness.
Lu Changyuan had nothing to say.
Su Youwan said, “I’ve heard the Pleasure Sect has a technique that can turn a woman of three parts beauty into seven, and a seven-part beauty into twelve.”
That would add inexplicable points to one’s appearance and make it easier to excite others’ hearts.
But in truth that technique did not change the face so much as it stirred the cultivator’s lust. Once lust entered the mind, reason was lost; the Pleasure Sect excelled in such methods.
Mei Zhao Zhao snorted again. “You’ve got some nerve to say that. You masked woman—do you have a bewitching method in your eyes? Is that why you always cover them?”
Su Youwan ignored Mei Zhao Zhao and kept revealing Mei Zhao Zhao’s past: “They say the Pleasure Saintess had worn a black robe without parting from it since she was ten. Very few have seen her face since—maybe her master and one or two others.”
Ten years old? A little child whose face hadn’t filled out yet, already hidden under a black robe? How mysterious.
Lu Changyuan really was a little curious, but with his current flaw in heart methods, he did not challenge the Pleasure Sect’s enchantments.
After all, his past success rate against the Pleasure Sect’s methods had been one hundred percent.
So long as he did not challenge them, his winning odds would not fall.
Su Youwan continued, “That said, I might have some grudge with Miss Mei.”
Mei Zhao Zhao was stunned; she thought it over and realized she had no real quarrel with the Cihang Palace’s Little Ancestor.
“What grudge?”
“Your master-uncle’s son got beaten up by me—nearly died at the Upper Jade Capital.”
“You mean Blood Smoke Rakshasa?”
The silver-haired girl brushed a strand of silver hair aside and hummed.
Mei Zhao Zhao sneered, “You ought to have just killed him—a neither-man-nor-woman thing.”
“Wait, wait—what do you mean your master-uncle’s son?” Lu Changyuan asked in puzzlement.
Su Youwan said, “Blood Smoke Rakshasa’s mother is her master’s junior sister.”
Lu Changyuan had no impression of Bu Bailian’s junior sister.
Su Youwan continued, “Young Master Lu, don’t be fooled by her foolish act—actually it’s likely meant to make you pity her and save her.”
Mei Zhao Zhao’s eyes were hidden beneath the black robe, hiding her expressions.
But she knew.
Su Youwan was not wrong; she had weighed it a few times and thought that this persona would be best for meeting Lu Changyuan—she considered him a soft-hearted man.
Lu Changyuan smiled and was unconcerned. “Third Royal Highness.”
Su Youwan stared at Lu Changyuan with careful attention, somewhat puzzled.
Could it be that Young Master Lu’s desire was lust?
She spoke softly, “Youwan did not mind.”
Xiao Qingfeng still sat on the throne.
Huge bones he fabricated kept regenerating and turned into living beasts.
“He had achieved the Dao.”
Those gigantic beings, as if from the dust of history, reappeared in the world.
There were massive lizards with bodies like granite, giant birds with three fleshy wings dripping crimson blood, coiling serpents whose lengths could not be counted, and headless towering humanoids—creatures long dead were recreated by Xiao Qingfeng through the Transformative Life Dao.
“So many monstrous thoughts were preserved here. Fine—the creatures of my kingdom must be diverse.”
Xiao Qingfeng was no longer satisfied with the readily available Jade Radiance.
He was addicted to the Jade Radiance technique; his ambition swelled without bound. He now wanted to peer beyond Jade Radiance.
Jade Radiance’s Transformative Life Dao could revive by blood and call back ancient phantoms; what lay beyond Jade Radiance? Could it truly reverse life and death, and by blood-threaded thought resurrect past creatures?
At the thought his eyes narrowed and a tremor ran through him.
Jade Radiance.
Above Jade Radiance.
Immortality—how wondrous.
He rose slowly, his black robe trailing the ground, then flew into the sky and looked down upon the Nether Kingdom he had given color to.
“Nether Lord, your city looks far better under my hand.”
He whispered to the Nether Kingdom, his voice full of undisguised pride.
The next moment, his brow tightened imperceptibly. Through the kingdom’s core he sensed where all of the Nether Lord’s spirits were heading.
The numbers were wrong—far fewer than he had expected. The spirits he planned to convert entirely into his own were missing in large part.
Never mind—trivial matters.
At that moment Xiao Qingfeng suddenly lifted his head; his gaze pierced layers of space and fixed upon Lu Changyuan’s small courtyard.
He sneered coldly, “You refuse to drink the offered wine and expect the punitive cup? Do you reject the immortality I grant?”
Nearly all cultivators who entered the Nether Kingdom this time had been annihilated; only that unremarkable little courtyard still clung to the breath of the living.
Although he could not yet fully control the Nether Kingdom, Xiao Qingfeng could clearly sense the presence of Yu.
What displeased him was that the authority of the Nether Kingdom in his hand was trembling, as if trying to break free of his control to return to Yu. The Nether River in the sky convulsed violently, water reversing as if about to fall again.
Xiao Qingfeng casually stretched out his hand and clenched the void. In an instant the kingdom’s tremor ceased; the reversed river stilled, and all disturbances were forcibly suppressed.
In the end, the Nether Kingdom was still under his command.
The Sun-Moon Sundial reappeared in his hand, now radiating an ominous faint glow. He truly could not yet fully alter the kingdom’s laws, for he had not truly become the master of this land.
But what if he targeted specific individuals—could he make the Nether Lord’s protections fail for those three in the courtyard?
The Sun-Moon Sundial suddenly expanded to more than a person’s height; the inner rings spun madly, grinding with a teeth-aching screech, and three bright beams rose.
“Three days,” Xiao Qingfeng said indifferently. “At most three days—then the Nether Lord’s shelter will vanish from you.”
By then, with a light reach of his hand, he could end this tedious resistance as if crushing ants.