When he saw the look on Mie Xingzhe's face, Li Luoning hurriedly turned around. He only saw a tall figure slowly falling toward him. By instinct, he reached out and caught the person in his arms. Only then did he see clearly who it was.
"Minghan… is that you?"
With a faint smile in his eyes, Shentu Zhuojia looked at Li Luoning's face.
Ou Shinan had just summoned was the Molten Knife of Kunlun Hill. It was coated with toad venom, the same gift he had once given to Hua Ruoying.
Looking at Shentu Zhuojia collapsed in his arms, Li Luoning raised one hand in fury. A powerful blast of spiritual force crushed Ou Shinan, who deserved death a thousand times over, into pieces so completely that he did not even have time to scream.
Ou Shinan's body was crushed to powder. Only a strip of purple silk forehead ribbon drifted down slowly, along with a golden-red point of light on the ground.
"Han… is that you?"
"Brother."
Li Minghan's voice came from within Li Luoning's body.
"Han, your elder brother wronged you. Do not… do not keep making mistakes…"
"Brother, I never blamed you. Never, never… Brother, Brother—"
Before Li Luoning could finish speaking, the light had already faded from the man in his arms. The hand that had been held lost all strength and slipped to his side.
Looking at Shentu Zhuojia before him, Li Minghan's consciousness inside the Moonshadow Dan completely broke apart. The force that burst from him tried to seize the last shred of Li Luoning's reason.
"Why? Why would you not even give me one last chance? Why!"
Li Luoning suddenly clutched his head tightly. The struggle between the two consciousnesses made it feel as though his skull were splitting apart. The veins on his hands bulged, his breathing came ragged and choked, his neck flushed red with pain, and his body swayed and crashed wildly, falling and forcing itself back up again.
He knew what Li Minghan wanted to do. He had to control this body. Otherwise, the result would be unimaginable.
"Master, what's wrong? What's happening?"
Seeing Li Luoning in such pain, Mie Xingzhe rushed forward to help, but Li Luoning stopped him with an outstretched hand.
"Nian Nian, do not come closer. I can barely hold him back anymore. Run, Run!"
Now he and Li Minghan shared one body. No one understood better than he did what Li Minghan was thinking.
But Li Minghan's resentment was too deep. In the end, Li Luoning's reason was crushed beneath it.
As Li Luoning's grief-stricken cries grew louder and louder, the Moonshadow Dan inside him burst with unprecedented power. In an instant, the whole of Kunlun Hill was shrouded in a violent storm of mixed spiritual force.
"There is nothing left. Heh… nothing left at all. Why? Why treat me this way?"
Now fully in control of the body, Li Minghan's eyes were blurred with despair. He tilted his head back slightly, laughed bitterly, and trembled, while a tear of utter hopelessness slid from the corner of his eye.
"I did nothing. Why? Why…"
Li Minghan could not understand why heaven had given him such a twisted fate, why it would not even leave him one last person to hold dear.
His father and mother had not loved him. His adoptive father and sworn brother had never truly kept close to him. Only Shentu Zhuojia had treated him with genuine heart. Yet he himself had become the man's father's murderer. He had stolen his throne and imprisoned him. He had wanted Shentu Zhuojia to hate him, thinking perhaps that would make his own heart suffer less. But after everything, the only one who had never hated him, who had still cared for him and believed he had wronged him, had always been that sworn elder brother.
" Why do all of you get your wishes while my own world lies in ruins? "
Li Minghan's words grew more and more crazed. Thick black smoke surged up from all around and slowly wrapped around him.
Master's body has already been completely overtaken by the Moonshadow Dan. I have to find a way to bring his mind back.
"The feather Grandmaster left me. I should summon it and see."
Only then did Mie Xingzhe remember the golden feather that had once rested against his chest.
He recited the spell and moved his hands. The feather drifted out from his chest and flew toward the black smoke surrounding Li Minghan. As Li Minghan absorbed the Chixi Dan into his body, the golden feather was drawn in as well.
Li Minghan slowly opened his eyes and reveled in the power of both inner cores inside him. He had only just raised his hand to command that power when he suddenly felt a tight, piercing pain in his chest.
"Ungh… what is this feeling? What is happening?"
He felt as though the Moonshadow Dan inside him was being gently but steadily wrapped in something, and that hold was growing tighter and tighter, leaving him unable to use its strength.
At the same time, the absorbed Chixi Dan also began to gather again. As it slowly reformed inside him, Li Luoning's consciousness gradually awakened within the body once more.
"What did you do to me?" Li Minghan demanded coldly and furiously at Mie Xingzhe.
"If you stop now, I will call the feather back. But you have to return my Master's mind to him," Mie Xingzhe said.
"In your dreams!"
Li Minghan still tried to force the Moonshadow Dan into motion, but the harder he pushed, the tighter the feather wrapped around it.
As his mind slowly regained consciousness, Li Luoning saw the scene before him and suddenly separated from the body. He took shape beside Li Minghan as a golden-red spirit shadow.
"Minghan, we share one bloodline. Why let it end like this? If you are willing to stop now, I will make sure both you and the Moonshadow Dan remain safe."
"Impossible!"
Li Minghan was already half mad. No matter how he struggled, the spiritual force in his body only tightened more and more. He could even feel cracks beginning to spread across the Moonshadow Dan.
"The power inside you now belongs to my Master, the Supreme God Liaoyin. This spell is hers alone. No matter how much you struggle, it will be useless. Only if you calm down and withdraw your power will the pain lessen."
"Li Luoning, what do you think you are? A god who saves all living beings? If not for you, how could I ever have fallen this far? Stop pretending in front of me. Since I have already decided to make all three realms bury themselves with my brother, you will go to hell with me."
Before the words had even fully fallen, Li Luoning's consciousness was pulled back into the body by Li Minghan.
"Stop! If you keep this up, you will not only destroy yourself, you will destroy the Chixi Dan and my Master's body too!" Mie Xingzhe shouted.
But Li Minghan, who had lost all reason, could not hear a single word. Like a frenzied beast, he drove the power in his body harder and harder. The feather tightened more and more, and the cracks spreading across the Moonshadow Dan grew worse and worse.
If this continues, he will not only destroy the Moonshadow Dan, he will burn the Chixi Dan inside him to nothing as well. And the force that erupts could turn all three realms into scorched earth. Grandmaster once said that when both inner cores appear, they create and destroy each other. The only thing that can restrain him now is the Chixi Dan. If that is true, then Master…
Mie Xingzhe desperately searched his memory for anything useful. Suddenly—
"If you can use the Fuguang Seal to guard your Master's heart channels, the demonic force will not be able to invade him."
Mie Xingzhe suddenly remembered what Supreme God Liaoyin had once told him.
"Protect his heart channels. Right, protect Master's heart channels. If I protect them, I also protect the Chixi Dan. The inner core. The Fuguang Seal in my inner core can protect Master's heart channels."
He placed one palm over his chest and summoned the inner core from within him. With one hand he pushed it up into the air. Then, with a sweep of the other, a ring of golden light appeared, and within it the five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—rose in their own different colors.
"Nian Nian, what are you doing? Stop!"
Li Luoning had no idea what Mie Xingzhe intended to do. But any spell performed after forcing the inner core out of the body was extremely dangerous. One mistake could destroy the core and kill the caster.
Mie Xingzhe glanced at Li Luoning's face and smiled with quiet guilt.
This was a spell he had secretly learned from one of Master's ancient books. He had always thought that if the Fuguang Seal truly became necessary one day, he would at least be able to summon it more easily. Now it seemed that everything had already been arranged by fate.
The little smile vanished from his face. In its place came a rare seriousness. As he continued to chant and move his hands, the powers of the five elements were driven one after another into Li Luoning's body.
Once they entered, the five elemental powers formed a shield around the Chixi Dan and circled it protectively.
Mie Xingzhe raised his hand. Full of sorrow, he looked at his Master one last time. His eyes were full of reluctance.
"If the Moonshadow Dan falls and the world is doomed, then let this be the end. Master, I was only an empty spirit body to begin with. This life was given to me by you. Whether I came or leave, perhaps I was never meant for this world at all. To have become your disciple in this life, I, Yun Wannian, can die without regret. This inner core was your gift to me. Today, entrusted by all living beings, I return it to you. With this seal, I trade for peace in the three realms."
Mie Xingzhe knew that if Li Minghan truly managed to detonate the Moonshadow Dan, the world would be reduced to scorched ruin. The only path he could think of was to use the Fuguang Seal within his own inner core to preserve Li Luoning's Chixi Dan. All things created and restrained one another. The Chixi Dan was the only force capable of balancing the Moonshadow Dan.
Only Master could save the three realms now.
Mie Xingzhe pushed his inner core into Li Luoning's body. At once, the Moonshadow Dan was forced back out and floated into the air.
Recovering his own mind, Li Luoning slowly descended from the air. Mie Xingzhe, stripped of the Fuguang Seal, drifted down like a fallen leaf and collapsed to the ground.
"Nian Nian… Nian"
Li Luoning called anxiously as he rushed to him and gathered him into his arms. His fingers moved in spell signs as he tried to send spiritual energy into Mie Xingzhe, trying desperately to hold together the body that was already beginning to fade.
"Master… there is no… no time. Quick…"
Mie Xingzhe placed his hand lightly over Li Luoning's and looked toward the unstable Moonshadow Dan nearby.
Floating in the air, the Moonshadow Dan was now covered in more and more cracks. The feather wrapped around it had already begun to fall away in rustling fragments.
Li Luoning gently laid Mie Xingzhe on the ground, then rose and hurried toward the Moonshadow Dan. His hands moved again and again, summoning seal after seal of golden light to wrap around it.
In the end, the Moonshadow Dan still broke through the restraint and shattered. Fortunately, Li Luoning had already sealed it within dozens of layers of golden light. Even when the violent force erupted, it only burned the nearby ground into blackened ruin.
Looking at the Moonshadow Dan vanish into nothingness before him, Li Luoning felt countless emotions rise and fall within him.
Then he suddenly came back to himself and hurriedly turned to look for Mie Xingzhe.
But with the Fuguang Seal gone, Mie Xingzhe had already been burned to ash by the blast. Only the Zhishou Gold-Thread Jade Pendant lay there alone.
Li Luoning walked over and carefully picked up the pendant. He gently traced the pattern he had once carved into it with his own hands, and memories of Mie Xingzhe came rushing back one after another.
"Master, Master, look what I brought you!"
"Master, brother Qingyi pushed me again!"
"Master, I know I was wrong. Please forgive me this once. There won't be a next time, I promise."
"Master."
"Master!"
"Master..."
Each cry of Master from those memories struck Li Luoning's heart hard. He could not help tightening his grip on the pendant. With his eyes shut tight, tears fell silently.
"The Chixi Dan, the Moonshadow Dan, the Fuguang Seal… for the sake of these things that could supposedly unify the three realms, how many lives still had to be lost?"
Now that he was truly alone, Li Luoning was filled with utter hopelessness. He lifted his hand and summoned the two inner cores still within him into his palm.
"My family's vengeance is avenged, the world is at peace, and I stand alone with nothing left to fear."
With that, Li Luoning prepared to destroy his own inner cores and end his life.
But suddenly, the beads at his wrist reacted.
"This is… the Now-and-Then Carving my senior brother left behind!"
At that moment, the beads released a ray of light, and several lines appeared in the air.
"Three thousand calamities all rise from cause and consequence. Five hundred years of waiting still rest beneath the heavens. Ten thousand thoughts return to emptiness, because all were only a dream. The voice hanging in the void will one day reveal what was hidden."
Years later, in the cave at Xueling,
"Time to eat~"
Li Luoning walked in from outside, carrying a wooden bowl in his hands. He called softly as he looked around.
"Ninnin? Ninnin?"
After calling several times and still seeing no sign of it, Li Luoning sighed helplessly and turned to ask,
"Have you seen Ninnin?"
Curled up nearby, a little fox sleepily opened one eye. It lazily raised its head, gave it a small shake, and its soft red fur and fluffy ears trembled a little. It flicked its gaze toward the stone table deeper in the cave, then comfortably went back to licking its fur.
Li Luoning could only sigh again and walk toward the stone table inside. That was where he usually sat to read.
Sure enough, lying lazily on the soft cushion beside the table was a beautiful white calico cat.
"I still do not know why I gave you that name in the first place. He used to be the most eager one whenever it was time to eat. But you? You still need me to bring the bowl right to your mouth."
Li Luoning complained helplessly, though his voice was full of affection as he set the bowl beside the cat.
Catching the scent, the cat twitched its nose, opened its eyes, and slowly stood up. It stretched its back and legs, pulling its soft little body out long, then sat there and lifted its fluffy round face to look up at Li Luoning.
"Meow~"
The calico gave an impatient little cry.
"What? You cannot even bear to hear me say two things to you?"
Li Luoning asked gently, smiling as he picked up a book and sat down beside it.
As soon as Li Luoning sat, the cat lightly jumped onto the stone table, rubbed its head against the back of the hand holding the book, then climbed into his lap, found a comfortable place, and curled up to continue its nap.
Looking down at the cat in his arms, Li Luoning shook his head helplessly. Then his gaze slowly drifted toward the pendant lying nearby.
(The End)