novelraw Chapter 29 : Chapter 29
Chapter 29 : Chapter 29
Chapter 29
The moment the ghosts saw Zou Sui, they all began to feel nervous. Earlier, in order to stop them from sneaking into the estate, the female ghost had already described this place as a demonic lair that devoured ghosts. There were only two people in the estate, Zou Sui and the old servant. They had all seen the old servant coming and going, and he was plainly just an ordinary mortal. If there was a problem, it had to be Zou Sui.
Yet when Zou Sui saw this whole string of ghosts, he acted as though he saw nothing at all. His eyes remained fixed on Shuang Wenlü as he questioned him.
The ghosts gathered their courage, discussed it among themselves, and began testing Zou Sui.
The female ghost circled behind Zou Sui and blew a breath on him. Zou Sui shivered and pulled his collar tighter.
Another ghost stood in front of him and changed his face into all kinds of ghostly expressions, but Zou Sui’s gaze passed straight through him. He was still looking at Shuang Wenlü, asking him about how roses could survive the winter.
Seeing that Zou Sui was standing there with a ring of ghosts around him and remained utterly unaware, Shuang Wenlü casually put him off by saying that it was too late tonight and they could talk again tomorrow.
Zou Sui was displeased, but his father, Zou Liye, was still there, and the sky had indeed gone fully dark. So he told the old servant to arrange rooms, then hurried off.
One of the foolish ghosts followed after him to continue testing him and almost floated right through the doorway.
Shuang Wenlü flicked a finger. The foolish ghost slammed into an invisible barrier at the entrance with a bang, then rubbed his head in confusion.
The female ghost was still muttering, “That’s impossible… If he’s an ordinary person, then how did Old Zhao disappear?”
Shuang Wenlü rose to his feet. “If you want to know what’s going on with him, wouldn’t it be enough to go and look?”
Zou Sui really was an ordinary person.
But within this estate, it was not just him and the old servant.
The female ghost hesitated for a moment, then led the other ghosts after him.
Shuang Wenlü paid them no mind and simply headed toward the rear courtyard.
After Zou Sui had left just now, that was exactly where he had gone.
He was indeed an ordinary person.
But he had a secret.
Several months ago, Zou Sui had come across a rose in the wild that was nearly withered to death. Its leaves were somewhat unusual, unlike anything he had seen before. His interest was piqued, and he wanted to save it and see whether he could raise it until it flowered.
This rose had been in far too serious a condition. To keep it alive, Zou Sui had poured in all his effort, tending to it carefully for months. Last winter it had still nearly failed to survive. Only by this spring had the rose finally stabilized, and at last it bloomed.
It was the most beautiful flower he had ever seen.
Its shape was elegant and graceful, and its petals were warm and translucent, like the finest jade.
But that was not the greatest surprise.
Zou Sui hurried eagerly into the rear courtyard and called softly to the rose he had cared for with such devotion, “Yuerong.”
A beautiful woman drifted down lightly and smiled at him. “Young Master Zou.”
This was his greatest surprise.
After the rose had blossomed, one night Zou Sui could not sleep and went for a walk in the courtyard. There, unexpectedly, he saw Yuerong, like a flower immortal. Zou Sui fell in love at first sight, but by accident he stepped on a dead branch, startling her, and in a flash she vanished.
Only later did Zou Sui learn that the rose he had saved was actually a flower immortal who had completed her cultivation. She had been gravely wounded and on the brink of death after being harmed by an enemy, and fortunately he had rescued her.
Zou Sui had fallen in love with Yuerong at first sight, and Yuerong had fallen in love with him as well. It was only because Yuerong still had an enemy lurking somewhere that Zou Sui dared not expose the matter and could only keep it hidden all this time.
While the two of them were speaking tenderly here, Shuang Wenlü had already reached the rear courtyard.
But in the eyes of Shuang Wenlü and the female ghost, the rear courtyard looked entirely different from the way it appeared to Zou Sui.
Zou Sui saw a whole garden of roses in bloom, moonlight hazy and a beauty like jade.
The female ghost, however, felt that the entire garden was deeply wrong. She remembered how she had felt the last time she secretly came to the estate. That beauty beside the roses filled her with nothing but fear. She could see Zou Sui’s vital essence silently flowing toward that woman.
“What is that?” the female ghost murmured.
“You don’t remember?” Shuang Wenlü said leisurely. “That is a demon.”
He had already stepped into the rear courtyard. “It sees you now.”
The female ghost started in alarm. Only then did she realize that they had unknowingly stepped into the boundaries of the rear courtyard. The four ghosts following her stared at the rose beauty with infatuation in their eyes.
The beauty exchanged sweet words with Zou Sui, then looked over from above his shoulder. Her gaze was strangely enchanting.
Under the moonlight, the hazy glow on the rose petals surged like a tide. It was actually pollen diffusing outward, sparkling strangely beneath the moon as it flooded toward them.
The female ghost instinctively swung an arm backward, ghostly energy shaking out and sweeping the four ghosts beyond the limits of the rear courtyard. But she herself had no time to dodge. The pollen engulfed her completely, and she froze on the spot.
Shuang Wenlü did not act.
He merely stood where he was, and the oncoming tide of light split into two before him.
The four ghosts who had been thrown out desperately wanted to save their boss, but an invisible force blocked them outside the courtyard.
Zou Sui was entirely unaware of all this. He stood there with vacant eyes.
What flower immortal repaying kindness was there?
It was only a demon using the desires of the human heart to bewitch him.
Demons took on countless forms. They were neither male nor female and had no gender. Whatever form you liked, that was what they would become. Then they would control your heart, eat your flesh, wear your skin, and continue luring the next person in the world.
The demon lightly raised an arm and covered her mouth with her sleeve, her eyes rippling as she smiled at Shuang Wenlü. “What a formidable sword cultivator.”
Though the demon looked relaxed, she was already extremely wary inside. She could not tell what method this sword cultivator had used to cast off her illusion array so effortlessly.
But she had already taken control of Zou Sui, and the female ghost who had come with the sword cultivator had also fallen into her illusion array. With those two as shields, she felt she still had a way out.
The demon in the form of a beauty looked Shuang Wenlü up and down with watery eyes. This sword cultivator’s cultivation was certainly not low. If she could break his Dao heart… At the thought, the beauty’s appearance grew even more alluring. One hand rested on Zou Sui’s shoulder as she leaned out, cheeks flushed, biting her lip with pearly teeth as she laughed softly. “The moonlight tonight is so beautiful. Why bother with fighting and killing? I’ll let them go. Why don’t you come and play with me instead?”
Though the demon spoke like this, the demonic energy around her tightened even more around Zou Sui, sliding suggestively over his throat and the vital points all over his body.
This was less seduction than provocation.
She had heard that the sword cultivators of Qiankun were the coldest and most unfeeling of all. If she could stir even the slightest tremor in one’s heartstrings, setting aside how much benefit she might gain from it, merely watching ripples disturb his mind would already be a rare delight.
Lust was not enough to move a sword cultivator whose heart was like iron and stone, but the desire to win was one of their most common obsessions. Zou Sui had long since fallen under her control. As long as this sword cultivator wanted to save him from her hands, the instant even the slightest fluctuation arose in his thoughts, she was confident she could seize it!
She watched as Shuang Wenlü raised his hand…
His long, powerful fingers moved.
Sword intent, like snow, spread vast and boundless, cleansing heaven and earth. All filth scattered. All demonic energy vanished.
The demon recoiled in terror and could no longer maintain the appearance of a beauty.
With just that single motion… no, it did not even count as a sword strike. It was only the slightest leak of sword intent, and it shattered all her arrangements.
Zou Sui blinked blankly. The demonic energy controlling him had been completely washed away by the sword intent. He saw the flower immortal who had just been speaking to him so tenderly transform in an instant into a hideous demon, and his eyes widened in horror. “You… y-you you…”
The demon had no energy left to spare on him.
The sword intent that blanketed the area was as vast and pure as falling snow. It felt as though she had fallen into a place of certain death and did not dare move at all. Looking at the sword cultivator before her, she no longer felt that he was some cultivator she could sample at will. All the greed and evil thoughts surging wildly through her heart had been cut away, leaving behind only endless terror.
She did not want to die here…
She could not die in Qiankun!
A demon that died in Qiankun had no chance at reincarnation.
Just as she was drowning in terror and despair, she suddenly heard that indifferent-eyed sword cultivator say, “I’ll give you a chance to escape with your life.”
Before she could feel joy, the demon instantly sensed murderous intent erupt from the snow-pure sword intent around her. The threat of death pressed against her like a blade. With no time to think, she seized the single thread of life hidden within the endless snow and fled wildly toward it. At the very end of that one slim chance, she plunged into the female ghost’s body.
Entering the heart, spirit, and sea of consciousness of living beings was an innate gift possessed by all demons.
After entering the female ghost’s sea of consciousness, the demon gained a chance to breathe. Then she understood. This was the chance to escape that terrifying sword cultivator had deliberately left for her.
Earlier, all her attention had been fixed on that sword cultivator, and she had not paid much notice to this female ghost already trapped in her illusion array. But now that she had entered her sea of consciousness, the demon discovered that this female ghost had actually been a cultivator in life. Even more than that, her Dao heart had already been broken once by another demon. Now her mind-consciousness was chaotic, and she had forgotten her entire past.
The demon suddenly understood that sword cultivator’s purpose.
He intended to use her to make this female cultivator, whose Dao heart was shattered, establish it anew.
How could that be so easy?
The demon sneered inwardly.
If a shattered Dao heart could be so easily rebuilt, then what would demons amount to? Would not cultivation become the easiest road in the world?
The demon glimpsed the female ghost’s heart demon and transformed into many demonic forms.
She had lost Zou Sui, that mortal, but now she had gained a female cultivator whose Dao heart had been broken. Was this not losing mulberries in the east and gaining them in the west? Today she would use this shattered Dao heart to completely seize control of a cultivator of Qiankun!
In the courtyard, the sword intent as pure as snowfall had quietly faded.
Zou Sui shrank in fear beneath the corridor. The four ghosts still wanted to find their boss.
Shuang Wenlü flicked his fingertip. The rigid female ghost unconsciously sat down cross-legged, while the four ghosts were bounced back and could not approach.
They looked at Shuang Wenlü. Though they were afraid, they could not just ignore their boss. Summoning their courage, they asked him, “B-Boss… what happened to Boss?”
“Don’t disturb her,” Shuang Wenlü said.
The ghosts did not dare ask further. They crouched nearby and watched anxiously.
The female ghost knew nothing of anything outside.
Demon…
She still remembered the last word she had heard.
And because of that, memories began surging up:
“Demons are very frightening things.”
Whose voice was that in her mind?
“Remember this: more than any danger you will ever face, they are what you must remain most vigilant against.”
Who was explaining this to her?
“Because they will desperately dig at the flaws in your Dao heart. Their only purpose is to destroy your path of cultivation.”
And who was she?
“…if you have already fallen into a demon’s illusion, then at the final step before your Dao heart collapses, you…”
Vast fog descended, and in an instant the surroundings transformed into green mountains and clear waters. She stood among white clouds, and the white clouds were like dense mist.
She stood there in confusion, unable to remember what she was supposed to be doing or what she had encountered before this.
“Yilin, Yilin? Sang Yilin!” A neatly dressed woman walked over, patted her on the shoulder, and laughed. “What are you thinking about so deeply?”
Another man with a sword at his waist laughed from nearby. “This is Junior Sister’s first time coming out. She’s excited, isn’t she?”
She looked around. She was standing on a flying boat suspended in the air. Aside from herself, there were seven other people nearby. Their looks and bearing were all different, but the way they looked at her was warm and kind.
That was right. She remembered now.
Her name was Sang Yilin, and she was a disciple of the Sword Pavilion.
The Sword Pavilion had rules. Disciples whose cultivation had not reached the Third Layer of the Yaoguang Realm were not allowed to descend the mountain. Disciples who had not climbed to the second tier of Junji Peak’s second level were not allowed to accept tasks outside the Sword Pavilion.
Junji Peak tested sword intent. It was the most perilous peak among the Sword Pavilion’s seventy-two peaks. Across the generations, every disciple of the Sword Pavilion whose sword intent reached great accomplishment would leave that sword intent on Junji Peak for later generations to comprehend. Junji Peak had nine tiers. One who learned sword intent could ascend the first tier. One who could completely refine and master a kind of sword intent could ascend the second.
This was for the disciples’ protection.
Sang Yilin had always cultivated within the sect before this. It was her first time descending the mountain with fellow disciples to carry out a task, and all around her were her senior brothers and sisters.
Each of them had different assignments, and one of them happened to have a patrol task along the way, so they brought her with them.
The flying boat traveled swiftly, and in the blink of an eye they had arrived.
Patrol tasks were generally very simple. The areas where the tasks took place were all under the protection of the Sword Pavilion, and because of the Sword Pavilion’s formidable reputation, there were few demons, monsters, or ghosts who dared seek death there.
After arriving, the senior brothers and sisters divided into teams. Senior Sister Liu, who had the highest cultivation, and Senior Brother Zhang took her along to patrol the assigned route. Along the way they chatted and laughed while teaching her from experience, but their divine senses remained spread out in vigilance the entire time.
The task was simple, so they could be relaxed.
But they could not let down their guard.
Sang Yilin had originally thought this would also be an easy task.
Later, they discovered a fissure in the ground, from which earthly baleful energy was leaking out. This too was a common occurrence. When the earth veins shifted, baleful energy would arise. As long as it was adjusted and treated, it could be resolved. In the wilderness, there would be no need to bother with it, but this place was close to a town where mortals lived, so to prevent accidents, it still had to be dealt with.
Her senior brothers and sisters first let Sang Yilin try.
This was a very good opportunity for training.
Sang Yilin used the baleful-dispelling art just as she had been taught, but it had no effect.
Seeing her blush, Senior Sister Liu comforted her. “It’s alright. Everyone needs practice at first. Look, you do it like this… hm?”
Senior Sister Liu’s own baleful-dispelling art had no effect either.
Senior Brother Zhang became interested as well. “Let me try.”
His method of adjusting it had no effect either. They called the others over. The baleful-dispelling art, the earth-leveling art, and the other techniques used to dissolve earthly baleful energy all proved useless.
“Could there be damage deep in the earth veins?”
“That should be the case.”
“Let’s go down into the fissure and have a look.”
After discussing it, the senior brothers and sisters decided to enter the earth fissure. Sang Yilin followed with them. But not long after entering, the expressions of her senior brothers and sisters changed.
At the time, her cultivation had been too weak, and she had not known exactly what had happened. She had only sensed that something was wrong from their reactions.
Their group of eight had all become trapped within the earth fissure.
No one could get out, and no message could be sent out either.
Senior Sister Liu told her to sit on the flying boat and said gently, “Don’t be afraid. There’s something wrong here. Once you get back, report it immediately and ask the sect elders to come.”
Seeing how tense she was, Senior Brother Zhang smiled brightly. “It’s alright. If you’re afraid, just hold your sword tightly.”
Senior Sister Liu’s flying boat was both a carrying artifact and a treasure for breaking restrictions. But when it carried too many people, its power to break restrictions naturally weakened by quite a lot.
Sang Yilin was carried by the flying boat as it broke through the fissure’s restriction and headed for the nearest branch pavilion of the Sword Pavilion. The moment she emerged from the restriction, she sent out a talisman asking for aid. Not long after the talisman flew out…
Senior Sister Liu’s flying boat lost its spiritual light and crashed to the ground.
In that supposedly simple patrol task, she was the only one who survived.
The demon raised thick fog. Sang Yilin stood within it as one figure after another appeared around her. Senior Sister Liu, Senior Brother Zhang… every single person who had died in that mission back then appeared before her, none missing.
They surrounded her, blood staining their bodies, their eyes fixed on her.
“Why?” Senior Sister Liu asked.
“Why did you survive?”
“Why were you the only one who survived?”
“Why why why?”
Sang Yilin could not help taking a step back.
Senior Brother Zhang stood behind her, placing an icy hand on her shoulder as he lowered his head and asked, “Why did you leave?”
Yes. Why?
She had been the weakest in cultivation, the least experienced of them all. Why had only she survived?
If they had not brought her along, would her senior brothers and sisters have had a chance to escape the restriction with the flying boat? If she had been more cautious when facing the fissure and asked for aid without entering it, would everyone have survived? If she had sent the message just a little sooner back then…
Many years later, Sang Yilin was no longer the weak novice who had just left the Sword Pavilion. She had investigated what had happened back then as well. According to the records, there had been an evil Yao creature hidden within the earth veins at the time, strange in cultivation and unlike an ordinary Yao creature. After the disaster, it had already been eliminated by a senior of the Sword Pavilion.
But the dead were dead.
Time buried old traces like dust, yet when the demon dug that matter back up, the heavy guilt and pain easily crushed her mind.
“Why did you run?” Senior Sister Liu stepped toward her, lips pale gray.
“Why did you abandon all of us and run away?”
Her senior brothers and sisters surrounded her with their accusations.
“You ran away. You ran away. You left us behind in the earth fissure.”
Sang Yilin could not answer.
In the illusion, she broke down and wept.
The demon smiled in satisfaction.
Look how easy this was.
She did not even need to do anything more. Sang Yilin, who had once collapsed here before, would collapse all over again. Once, a demon had broken her Dao heart through this very matter. Now she would use the same thing to utterly destroy her path of cultivation and make this female cultivator her tool forever after!
“Come on,” Senior Sister Liu said, extending a hand toward Sang Yilin. “Come be with us.”
“Don’t cry. If you stay with us, you won’t suffer anymore.” Senior Brother Zhang smiled at her.
Their expressions were no longer cold and frightening. They reached toward her with smiles, as though welcoming her home.
Dazed, Sang Yilin extended her hand.
She should have died long ago.
She should not have run.
If she stayed with them, she would not suffer anymore.
Outside the illusion, moonlight lay like frost. Ghostly tears hung on the female ghost’s face, only to scatter into pale white yin energy before they could fall far.
The four ghosts were so anxious that they clawed at their hair, but they did not dare touch her.
Without turning back, Shuang Wenlü looked at the full moon overhead and suddenly spoke.
“Sang Yilin, where is your sword?”
“Sang Yilin, where is your sword?”
Within the illusion, Sang Yilin, who was just about to reach out and grasp Senior Sister Liu’s hand, suddenly stopped.
She heard those words and instinctively looked at her own hand.
Her hand was wrapped in white cloth.
That was what beginner sword practitioners used to keep sweat on their palms from making their grip slip.
Where was her sword?
A sword covered in cracks extended from her fingertips.
The moment she gripped that sword, her mind abruptly cleared.
She no longer had her sword. Many years later, her cultivation had already surpassed that of the senior brothers and sisters from back then, but during a mission in Suizhou, a demon had perceived the flaw in her Dao heart. She died in Suizhou.
Her artifact flying sword had long since disappeared, and the cracked blade in her hand now was her sword heart.
“…if you have already fallen into a demon’s illusion, then at the final step before your Dao heart collapses,” the forgotten memory reconnected at last. It was something Senior Brother Zhang had once taught her on behalf of their master when she had first begun to glimpse the path of cultivation. “You still have one last chance.”
“Hold your sword.”
Even in the most hopeless of situations, a disciple of the Sword Pavilion always had a sword in hand.
That sword was their sword heart, tempered year after year through cultivating the Sword Pavilion’s techniques.
The sword heart was formed from the Dao heart, yet it was also more than just the Dao heart. Through the unsurpassed profundity of the Sword Pavilion’s foundational technique, every Sword Pavilion disciple’s sword heart reflected the sword hearts of every cultivator who had cultivated that same technique.
“Wouldn’t that be incredible?” the younger Sang Yilin had asked excitedly then.
The cultivators of the Sword Pavilion!
Those were the masters of the seventy-two sword peaks, the twelve famous Sword Immortals, and the Sword Sovereign, unmatched under heaven!
Senior Sister Liu, standing nearby, had laughed. “What are you thinking? This sword heart normally does not show any power. It only becomes effective when a cultivator is in the most perilous of circumstances.”
Sang Yilin had asked blankly, “Does that mean I can only use it when I’m about to die?”
Senior Brother Zhang shook his head. “The most dangerous moment a cultivator faces is not life and death, but the instant their path is about to be destroyed.”
For those righteous cultivators of the world who stepped onto this road, they did not seek what ordinary mortals sought. Life and death were merely obstacles on their path of cultivation. What was truly terrifying was having one’s path completely destroyed, such that one could never again re-enter the Dao.
This supremely clear sword heart, when a cultivator’s Dao heart was on the verge of collapse and their mind was sinking into confusion, could split open one thread of clarity for them.
Even if she was already trapped in delusion, this sword heart still reflected the lucid understanding of all the Sword Pavilion’s elders, her teachers, her fellow disciples, Senior Sister Liu, Senior Brother Zhang…
Holding her sword, Sang Yilin pointed it toward the senior brothers and sisters around her, half laughing and half crying.
Her hand was still wrapped in white cloth. That had been the attire she wore when her cultivation was still insufficient and her palms would still sweat. At that time, her cultivation had not yet been enough for her to go down the mountain.
If she had not gone down the mountain, then her senior brothers and sisters would not have died.
A demon had broken her Dao heart and killed her. After death, her mind had become muddled and she had forgotten everything, yet she had still wanted to remain in the time before she had left the mountain.
The transformed demon could no longer control Sang Yilin’s sea of consciousness. Still wearing the forms of her senior brothers and sisters, it cried out in fear and anger:
“What are you trying to do?!”
“You’re going to kill your own senior brothers and sisters?!”
“You are not my senior brothers and sisters.” Sang Yilin tightened her grip on the sword. Tears streamed down her face as she slashed fiercely at the demon. “I survived because they wanted me to live!”
They had never blamed her for escaping alone. It was they who had given her the only chance to survive.
Nor had they ever thought she was a coward who ran away.
This was not what her senior brothers and sisters had thought.
This was her own knot in the heart.
The illusion shattered, and the demon was gone.
The cracks on the sword heart vanished one by one, then it dissolved back into her body and disappeared.
Sang Yilin opened her eyes. She had remembered everything. Facing Shuang Wenlü’s back, she bowed deeply.
She did not recognize him, but aside from a senior of the Sword Pavilion, who else could have awakened her sword heart with one perfectly timed sentence?
“You should go be reincarnated now,” Shuang Wenlü said.
Her obsession had already dissolved, and Sang Yilin could no longer resist the pull of reincarnation. A gentle glow spread over her body. She was about to cast herself into the next life under the guidance of the power of reincarnation.
Seeing that she was alright, the four ghosts all relaxed. But now that they saw the strange signs on her body, they instinctively understood that this meant she was about to be reborn. It was a good thing, but the four ghosts could not help feeling reluctant.
The demon had planted the thought in Sang Yilin’s mind that she was a coward afraid of death, and she had truly believed it. Yet all along this journey, though she kept thinking of abandoning the four ghosts and escaping alone, she had never once actually fled. And when the demon attacked, her first instinct had still been to save those four ghosts.
Sang Yilin looked at the four foolish ghosts who called her Boss and said, “My name is Sang Yilin.”
The four foolish ghosts scratched their heads. “Boss, is this your eighth name or your ninth?”
Sang Yilin laughed. “This time it’s real.”
She pointed out a path for them.
Zou Sui already knew that the rose immortal of his tender romance had in fact been a demon trying to eat him. Now he also learned that his estate had flattened their graves. He agreed to move their graves elsewhere and offer sacrifices to them regularly. The four foolish ghosts, at least, now had a place to belong.
The glow on Sang Yilin’s body grew brighter and brighter. She was just about to be reborn into her next life. She bowed once more to Shuang Wenlü. “Senior…”
As she rose, she suddenly saw Shuang Wenlü narrow his eyes toward the distance. In them flashed an incomparably sharp ray of sword light, as though it shot away to some unknown place.
Sang Yilin paused involuntarily.
Shuang Wenlü turned to look at her. “Hm?”
Sang Yilin came back to herself and bowed. “May I ask Senior’s honored name?”
Even if, after reincarnation, she would no longer remember her former life, at this moment she still wanted to know which senior had saved her.
The corner of Shuang Wenlü’s mouth lifted.
“My surname is Shuang.”
Sang Yilin’s eyes widened, and within that gentle glow, she entered reincarnation.