The Forbidden Path to Immortality

Chapter 278

“What, you still haven’t figured it out? This is my uncle.”

“Uncle. Uncle...” he murmured the word to himself a few times before his muddled mind finally managed to grasp what it meant.

By now, he and Gu Yin had already stepped into the small pavilion. The man gazing off into the distance was barely two arm-lengths away.

Gu Yin’s uncle? What is going on? What is going on? Ox Warrior, Tianzhi, Kunpeng. They all mentioned him. They all…

Li Xun was lost. He stared blankly at the man’s back, his mind empty.

The man seemed unaware that the two of them had entered the pavilion. He just stayed exactly as he was, leaning there without so much as twitching a muscle.

Gu Yin stepped forward. With that step, her demeanor returned to the graceful composure Li Xun knew best. She performed a flawless bow toward the man and greeted him in a gentle voice. “Uncle, I hope you are well.”

The man finally stirred. From Li Xun’s angle, with Gu Yin in the way, all he could make out was a slight turn of the head. No words. Just that tiny shift, then nothing.

Gu Yin smiled and went on. “Take a look. Do you see who I’ve brought with me today?”

She stepped aside, leaving nothing between Li Xun and the man.

Li Xun took a deep breath, feeling like his brain was finally waking up. He tweaked his expression, then.... with the most guts he'd ever mustered in his life, lifted his eyes to meet his straight on.

The man by the railing turned to the side, and a pair of lifeless, desolate eyes fell on him.

Li Xun saw the man’s face clearly at last.

Yeah, he had to admit it. That face hit him like a blow. He'd never laid eyes on the man before, but damn if he didn't almost blurt out his name right then and there.

But right after that, their eyes locked. And in that split second of contact, it felt like a bottomless black hole had snapped open, sucking every last bit of the emotions that had been on the verge of bursting out of him.

A bone-deep chill crept up from his tailbone, freezing his body inch by inch, until it reached his brain and brought his thoughts to a dead halt.

In that dazed haze, it felt like Gu Yin had flicked a glance his way. Li Xun wasn't totally sure. The only thing he knew for damn sure was that once his mind snapped back to normal, all he registered was this shattering, crumbling explosion roaring up from deep in his chest.

That sound surged up his throat, swirling between his lips and teeth, but in the end it only crumbled into a broken, ragged sigh that spilled out into the air...

“A Nethermyst Puppet. This is a Nethermyst Puppet!”

Gu Yin looked over in surprise. “Oh? Very impressive. You spotted it at a glance.”

Li Xun did not answer. Every shred of his attention was locked onto the man’s face, leaving no room for anything else.

Now he was absolutely certain. This man had to be Jade Wanderer. And just as certainly, he knew that Jade Wanderer had already been refined into a Nehermyst Puppet... the technique executed flawlessly.

Jade Wanderer, a Nethermyst Puppet? A Nethermyst Puppet, Jade Wanderer?

Absurd.

He shuddered again. The cold seemed to seep straight into his bones, making every breath harder to draw. And at the same time, his thoughts grew unnervingly clear.

Jade Wanderer… was dead.

From the moment he met Ox Warrior, that hazy suspicion had been lurking in the back of his mind. Tianzhi later put it into words. And today, at last, it had solidified into something undeniable.

But it felt nothing like before.

Right here, right now, Li Xun finally understood.

Even though Ox Warrior and Tianzhi had each confirmed it in their own way, and even though he had told himself a thousand times that he believed it, when he truly came face to face with the outcome, he suddenly realized something.

Deep down, that root he thought had already rotted away was still there.

I don’t believe it...

How could he?

his enemy... the enemy who'd humiliated him down to the bone, the bastard he'd cursed millions of times in his head, the target he'd sworn to hunt and hate for the rest of his fucking life...

For decades, this bastard had loomed like a huge shadow over his life, always there, everywhere. And today… in this way… it all came to an end.

Sorry. It was never anything more than an empty bubble.

Then what the hell was he? Some lunatic screaming his lungs out at the empty sky? A total idiot swinging fists at thin air? Or just a pathetic joke of a man, propping up his entire goddamn life on nothing but smoke and lies?

All of a sudden, the memory of Zuowang Peak slammed into him. Of Edge-of-Abyss Terrace, of the moment he’d hurled himself off the edge, tumbling and thrashing in empty air with nothing to grab onto, layer after layer of gravity crushing down on him in that endless, never-stopping fall.

Just like now.

No, that wasn’t right. Back then, at least he had known which way he was falling. Now, he looked around and saw nothing but emptiness, nothing to grasp, nothing to lean on.

His body and his thoughts felt as if they were dissolving, as if in the next instant he would turn into yet another bubble, popping with a soft pop, leaving not a single trace behind.

It was a nightmare. He was suffocating inside it, with the awful sense that he would never wake up.

Just then, a figure that looked strangely familiar drifted across his vision and glanced back at him with cold eyes. Maybe it was only his imagination.

But that figure, that look, was like a sharp blade. It sliced open the suffocating shell of the nightmare, and the air of reality rushed into his lungs.

Li Xun shivered several times, but in that moment, he was truly awake.

Gu Yin was studying him with interest. In the reflection of her pupils, Li Xun could even see his own pale face.

A shrill alarm went off inside his head as an invisible pressure closed in from all sides. Li Xun could hardly be called calm, but instinct took over. He adjusted his expression just enough, letting himself look like someone utterly stunned by a world-shattering secret.

“Jade Wanderer? It’s really Jade Wanderer?”

“The real thing,” Gu Yin said with a slight smile, looking totally at ease. But as her gaze drifted across Jade Wanderer's face, there was something in it that words couldn't quite capture. She paused for a beat, then added softly, "After all, I've only ever had one uncle."

The shattered fragments of Li Xun’s thoughts finally began to piece themselves back together, and he found he could once again control the muscles in his face without too much trouble.

He swallowed, a chill still seeping through his teeth. “But…”

It was as if something suddenly clicked. His neck stiff, He turned his head and stared at Gu Yin’s calm, unruffled face. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

Gu Yin lifted her eyes slightly and met his gaze. The directness pierced right through him, shaking him. But he also felt the utter lack of pretense in it. She wasn’t trying to hide anything, and she had no need to.

Li Xun finally let out a real, bitter smile. The “fake him” and the “real him,” after a subtle divergence, merged back together so seamlessly that there was no visible seam at all.

And with his whole heart, he asked a single question. “Why?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not something I plan to tell you today. However…”

Those same penetrating eyes fixed on Li Xun again. This time, Gu Yin was smiling. “I do rather want to ask you something. This time around, did I hit the mark?”

Li Xun’s heart skipped twice. He had already braced himself, though, so when he heard her words, he could only smile wryly. “Sect Master Gu, what are you even talking about? The earlier matters are one thing, but this… all right, I’ll admit it. Your uncle’s situation did take me by surprise. Still, that doesn’t really connect with everything before it, does it?”

“Yes, it does seem like it has nothing to do with you. Still, there’s one thing I don’t quite understand.” Her tone dipped first, then rose. “What I said earlier was meant to hit where it hurts. I’ll admit it didn’t sound very nice. Your strong reaction was only natural, nothing surprising there. But just now, over my uncle’s situation, wasn’t your response a bit… over the top?”

“Over the top? Was it?” Li Xun did his best to look innocent.

Gu Yin didn’t answer. She smiled and casually formed a hand seal. Moisture from the air around the pavilion gathered under the pull of her true breath , slowly taking shape until it condensed out of thin air into a Water Mirror. And on its surface appeared Li Xun’s expression from moments earlier, when he had seen Jade Wanderer.

No one had ever “refuted” him this way before. So this was also the first time Li Xun had seen his own face put on display, cycling through such a vivid range of colors.

From ashen blue to deep red, then from deep red to a corpse-pale. The tiny muscles jerked and clenched, flashing fear, rage, hatred, and even a gut-deep despair...

Every expression he wasn’t supposed to let slip poured out in that moment. And it all ended in a complete, devastating blank stare."

So it really was true.

Li Xun closed his eyes, then opened them again. Strangely, he felt neither panicked nor especially dejected. A sudden clarity settled over him. So this was what it looked like when emotions suppressed for decades finally burst free. If that was the case, what was there left to say?

With a flick of her sleeve, Gu Yin wiped the Water Mirror away. Li Xun gathered his true breath, as subtly as he could, readying himself for whatever might come next.

Gu Yin must have noticed. Yet instead of reacting, she moved to the railing on the other side and leaned against it, gazing off toward a far distance half-hidden by flowers and trees.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” she said. “Caring more about the life or death of someone you’ve never even met than about the humiliation and threats you’ve endured yourself... it almost sounds ridiculous. I once thought it was because of Lin Ge…”

An already blurred figure surfaced in Li Xun’s mind. This time, even he felt like laughing.

Gu Yin glanced back at him, and there was a teasing edge to her words as well. “Right.” A teasing lilt in her voice. “Looked at that way, it would be giving you far too much credit. If you really had the moral backbone to stand up for Lin Ge, letting it spill over from Qixia all the way to my uncle, and still be this emotionally invested, how would you have survived until now? So there has to be another reason. Something that involves you directly, something we’ve overlooked. Isn’t that right?”

Li Xun didn't say anything. By now, he had stopped thinking about anything else. His focus locked in so tight that his face turned hard as cast iron, not a single flicker left in it. And the chill in his eyes had built up so much there was no hiding it anymore.

Things couldn’t get any worse. Instead of playing along, he might as well go all in. And Gu Yin just happened to be seriously injured…