THE NIGHTMARE that had beset the cultivation realm seemed to never end. Attacks from Zhenlong pawns came one after another, and the cultivator behind them was thought to be a lunatic, taking victims indiscriminately. From graying seniors to infant children, all would fall under their sway. They'd cast such a wide net that no one could guess where their true goal lay.
Some came to beg Tianyin Pavilion for help, but the pavilion master declined to appear, claiming illness. Even when refugees starved to death at their gates, the doors remained shut. Slowly, many finally—and with great reluctance—realized that perhaps they'd been wrong from the start.
But by now it was far too late.
Mo-zongshi was dead, and Chu Wanning's whereabouts were unknown. Sisheng Peak had fallen, and the great sects had their hands full within their own territories. More and more mindless Zhenlong pawns wandered the realm, killing people and setting fire to their homes. The violence spread like a wildfire on a parched plain, swallowing the entire cultivation realm at a blinding pace. From Jiangdu and Yangzhou in the east, to Sichuan in the west, all the way down to Leizhou in the south…beautiful buildings and warships alike creaked their laments within the inferno and collapsed in on themselves. Great swaths of the mortal world's beauty solemnly blackened to char in this apocalyptic inferno.
Atop the Star-Viewing Terrace in Tianyin Pavilion, Shi Mei gazed out at the chaos both distant and near. He stood alone for a while before he heard footsteps behind him.
A woman's silk shoes creaked over a thin layer of snow, and hands draped a cloak around Shi Mei's shoulders. Mu Yanli asked, "Where's Taxian-jun?"
"He left this morning."
"You've sent him out already?" Mu Yanli was stunned. "Why so soon?"
"There's no reason to wait. Everything is ready; all that remains is to choose the right moment. It's up to him." It took a long beat for Shi Mei to speak again, a tremor in his usually controlled voice. "Jiejie," he mumbled. "It's been so many years. Two lifetimes. I've finally done it…"
Mu Yanli turned and saw the gleam of tears in his peach-blossom eyes. Whether they were tears of excitement or sorrow, she didn't know.
Shi Mei closed his eyes, forcing himself still. "Let's go. The Space-Time Gate of Life and Death will open soon. We'll bring all our pawns across."
"All of them?"
"All of them."
"But that's so many…" Mu Yanli's face was pale, but when she caught sight of Shi Mei's pained, hungry expression, she stiffened her resolve. "All right. I understand."
She turned to leave. Yet as she stepped out of the terrace, Shi Mei called out, "Wait!"
Mu Yanli looked back. Backlit by the setting sun, Shi Mei watched her, the wind buffeting his cloak. He seemed to have more to say, but even after the rims of his eyes went red, no words emerged.
At length, Mu Yanli broke the silence. "Don't worry. No amount of cruelty would make me betray you."
Shi Mei closed his eyes. Perhaps anyone, at such a significant moment, would become sensitive and fragile. His voice shook. "Even my other self from this lifetime betrayed me…"
"He didn't betray only you," said Mu Yanli. "He betrayed the entire Butterfly-Boned tribe; he betrayed every one of us. He refused to continue staining his hands with cultivators' blood—but in doing so, he sentenced us to hell."
Shi Mei said nothing.
"I understand why you did what you did," said Mu Yanli. "A-Nan, it doesn't matter what the world says about you. Among the Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast tribe, you are a hero."
She left.
Shi Mei watched her go. He turned, placing his fine-boned hands on the intricately carved railing and letting the coolness seep all the way into his heart.
"A hero?" He cast his eyes up to the dark clouds overhead, sighing. "There's no hope of that anymore. No hero has ever taken so many lives."
Sadness flashed in his eyes, but the emotion was swiftly erased. "I've done all I can across two lifetimes, battling heaven and earth against the designs of fate. Now, both these forbidden techniques—
the Space-Time Gate and the Zhenlong Chess Formation—lie within my grasp. No one on earth can stop me. Forget becoming a hero. I just want a way out."
His knuckles were white on the railing, his last three words swallowed up by the wind: "For us all."
A black silhouette swept through the snowy haze of Kunlun.
The snowstorm scraped his cheeks like blades, but he narrowed those purple-black eyes as if he couldn't feel the cold. He soared through these skies like one of the mountain's cliffside vultures, nimbly leaping up onto the green tiles of the sect's rooftops. There were many formidable fighters on patrol at Kunlun Taxue Palace, but none noticed his arrival. He walked over the snow without leaving a single print.
The man swiftly made his way to the highest point in Taxue Palace. From there, he could look down at Heavenly Lake in the snow, surrounded by the hazy stillness and spreading fog.
That bolt of black lightning came to a stop. He stood atop Kunlun, as straight as the blade of a dagger. His black eyes remained fixed on Heavenly Lake. The howling gale flung back his hood, revealing the bloodless face of Emperor Taxian-jun.
He'd endured yet another round of Shi Mei's tempering: Now in possession of Mo-zongshi's spiritual core, he'd regained the power he once had and no longer disobeyed his master's commands. He'd finally become a weapon with which Shi Mingjing was satisfied, a bottomless wellspring of spiritual energy.
But ever since he'd awoken at Tianyin Pavilion, certain scraps of memory flitted through his mind. He'd always been certain he hated Chu Wanning and loved Shi Mingjing, that the fullness of his anger and adoration were linked to each of them respectively. Yet slowly, he was coming to realize this wasn't the case. He heard hazy voices and saw blurry scenes: Chu Wanning carefully folding wontons in Mengpo Hall; himself pleading, Shizun, let's start over from the beginning, okay? Please, pay attention to me, won't you…
He saw the full moon shining down over the ocean and into two people's hearts. He saw himself holding Chu Wanning's hand, while Chu Wanning looked down at his lap. Impossibly, those sharp phoenix eyes were red and wet at the corners. He heard Chu Wanning telling him, I'm no good. Nobody's ever liked me.
He saw their passionate tryst at the inn. The storm raged outside, but it had nothing to do with them. He saw Chu Wanning inside the Red Lotus Pavilion, Chu Wanning looking up at him—
His heart pounded. Taxian-jun's eyes flew open. What was this?
He saw Chu Wanning looking so gently up at him—a tenderness in his eyes that no drug, torment, imprisonment, humiliation, or his own ceaseless wheedling had ever earned him. Taxian-jun's head pounded. He reached up to rub at his temples, sunlight flashing on the thorns of his vambraces. He cursed. "What the hell?"
Standing on the ridge of the roof, he sank into thought. The snows of Kunlun flurried down, and his shoulders were soon coated in slush—but for some reason, in the depths of his heart, he found it as peaceful as the sweetest dream. Somehow, in this dream, the sight of Chu Wanning's gentle eyes soothed him.
"This venerable one must be going insane." He blinked, pushing those absurd visions out of his mind and continuing forward.
His master had ordered him to find the place with the strongest spiritual energy in Kunlun and fully open the Space-Time Gate to the past life. He should've gone north. But when he saw Heavenly Lake, he turned the other way.
Here, he'd forever lost Chu Wanning.
Taxian-jun stood in place for a moment, resisting his urges, then struck out for the lake as if possessed.
Just as he was about to leap over the colonnade that encircled Taxue Palace, he heard a familiar voice.
"Dad… Mom…"
Too familiar. He froze, hiding himself in the shadows, only his pitch-black eyes peering downward. When he got a clear look, he guffawed. "I wondered who it was. So it's you."
In the courtyard below was a lone Xue Meng. He clutched a jug of wine, sprawled over the table and stinking drunk.
"This venerable one didn't kill your parents this time." Taxian-jun stroked his own chin, relishing the sight of Xue Meng so downtrodden. "But this venerable one is only too pleased to see you upset. I haven't forgotten who dug a hole in my chest all those years ago. How do you like it? Does your heart ache?"
The courtyard was silent. No one else was there.
Taxian-jun stared down for a beat longer. Struck by a whim, that black shadow fluttered down and landed before Xue Meng. The intoxicated phoenix didn't register his arrival. He caressed the jug of wine, then tipped it back to pour more into his mouth.
An icy hand reached out and grabbed the red clay jug, stopping him.
"Who…?"
"Take a guess."
Xue Meng squinted through one puffy eye, red with tears. Slowly, that eye followed the hand up to Emperor Taxian-jun's handsome, mocking face.
Taxian-jun had never seen Xue Meng so defeated. Xue Meng from the past life must've surely broken down like this on many occasions where no one could see, but Taxian-jun was witnessing it with his own eyes for the first time. He licked his lips, savoring the thrill. Bending down, he stared at Xue Meng like a predator eyeing its prey. "How interesting. So even Chu Wanning's pet disciple will drown his sorrows in wine and lie here in a drunken heap."
He sat down sideways by the stone table's edge and reached out to tilt Xue Meng's face to the light. "It's been a while since I've seen you at this age." A rueful note crept into his voice. "This venerable one's been in that other world too long—I nearly forgot what a proud and haughty face you had when you were young."
His fingers slid from his cheeks to his nose, his brow, then prodded him on the forehead. "Xue Meng, did you know? There's something this venerable one regrets very much."
He stared into Xue Meng's glassy eyes, and a chilling smile crept across his face. "In the last life, this venerable one spared you in a moment of mercy—but then you turned around and tried to kill me. Often, this venerable one wondered if it wouldn't have been better to kill you at the start. Ah, honestly, the living are never truly at ease, and the dead aren't exactly suffering." Taxian-jun's voice was a low and threatening murmur. "Xue Meng, do you want to join your mom and dad?"
He leaned forward. His icy breath brushed Xue Meng's cheek, and two freezing fingers came to rest on the artery pulsing at the side of Xue Meng's throat. Taxian-jun's eyes never left Xue Meng's. He stared at his own reflection in those hazy, tear-filled pools, the image of a ghost returned to earth.
"Everyone in this world will die eventually." Taxian-jun bared his white teeth. "And we were brothers half our lives, were we not? Since I've run into you here, this venerable one might as well help you on your way. Set you free."
As he tightened his grip in preparation to kill, he heard a murmur, soft as a seedling sprouting from the earth. "Ge…"
Taxian-jun froze. Xue Meng gazed at him, so drunk it seemed he'd only just recognized the man in front of him. His tears fell like rain as he sobbed, staggering to his feet and grabbing Taxian-jun's ice-cold arm as if it was driftwood upon a stormy sea. "Ge…"
Of course he wouldn't notice the minute differences between the Mo Ran of the past life and that of the current world. He only knew that this was Mo Ran, his brother, his family, the return of his carefree youth.
The words finally sank in. Taxian-jun was sure he hadn't misheard. Stunned, he didn't know what expression to put on. A scene flickered through his dazed mind: himself and Xue Meng, sitting in the Red Lotus Pavilion, toasting each other with wine and tea beneath the moonlight.
Was this yet another thing Mo-zongshi had done?
"Ge." Xue Meng burrowed into Taxian-jun's arms, eyes wet and unfocused. He initially tried to hold back his tears but eventually started stammering and sobbing, gasping out the words between bouts of crying: "Don't go… Don't leave me here alone." Then his focus seemed to go inward, and he began to shake, speaking through bloodless lips. "Don't kill my dad; don't force them… I was the one who killed those people—don't hurt my parents, hurt me instead…" Great, fat tears slipped from his chin to dampen Taxian-jun's lapels. "Don't…don't cut out my ge's heart…"
Amidst his nonsensical weeping, Taxian-jun slowly lowered the hand that would've choked Xue Meng to death. He stood stiffly, wanting to push Xue Meng aside—but Xue Meng held him so tight, in such a brotherly embrace. Slowly, his tears soaked the fabric over his chest, just above his heart.
When he extricated himself at last, Taxian-jun practically fled back onto the roof. He lay atop the colonnade, carefully out of sight, and watched Xue Meng, curled up and sobbing in the snow.
In his memories, Xue Meng had always been cruel and haughty, with a sharp and cutting tongue—but the young man abandoned in this snowstorm was merely a boy who couldn't find his gege anymore.
He watched Xue Meng cry for a very long time. At length, Xue Meng rose to his feet, either sobered up or exhausted, and stood blankly in the courtyard. Clutching his jug of wine, he stumbled toward the plum-blossom trees in the courtyard. He wandered aimlessly, his expression lost, and slowly dwindled into the distance.
Taxian-jun looked at the mess of footprints left in the snow, left by someone who never turned around. He watched as they marked a path into the depths of the storm, until he lost sight of Xue Meng's retreating silhouette.
Mournful singing drifted over the wind. It was a Sichuan song Xue Zhengyong had sung when he was alive. Now it came from Xue Meng's throat, echoing over the snowy Kunlun Taxue Palace.
"Greeting old friends, half but ghosts, meeting only in cups of wine." That voice still held a youthful clarity, but its tones were heavy with weariness. "Beneath the osmanthus tree hides a pot of wine, a drink shared between timeworn faces and streaks of white."
The snow left fingers of white in the young man's dark hair. His hoarse singing was accompanied by the wail of the wind, two torn and tattered cries.
"The first light of dawn shatters the dream, all depart…" The song was fading out, growing distant. Or maybe Xue Meng hadn't gone far at all; maybe his voice had gone soft, his breath swallowed by sobs. "Leaving me alone with my aged tears."
Leaving me alone with my aged tears.
At the age of twenty-two, he could only see his old friends smiling together again in drunken dreams. He was in the best years of his youth, yet he relied on the aid of a jug of wine to see the parents and friends he yearned for.
Xue Meng tipped his face up, as if trying to keep more tears from spilling. He couldn't tell if he succeeded—the storm blinded him. He closed his eyes, crying out so loudly his song echoed among the clouds. He seemed to be interrogating the heavens themselves, making demands of the earth under his feet. "I'd give what remains of my life to the God of Dreams, if only to call you back, cup after cup!"
Beneath the gathering clouds, he smashed his jug on the ground.
Xue Meng let himself fall into the snow, his arms spread wide. He didn't want to go any farther. What was ahead of him, anyway? He was surrounded by ice and snow, bereft of anyone he knew, stripped of his home. Even the Mo Ran he'd dreamed of just now was fake, a mirage that had disappeared in the next blink.
He lay unmoving in the snow. After a beat, he reached out and covered his eyes. Those bloodless lips parted, hot tears sliding down his temples. "Why did you leave me behind?" He sobbed, voice cracking. "Why… Why did you leave me here…?"
In both lifetimes, Xue Meng had been left alone.
Taxian-jun listened as those last words were drowned by the storm, staring in the direction in which Xue Meng had gone. He stood on the rooftop, completely still, the gale whipping through his cloak. He reached up and touched his chest, unsure what he was feeling.
Greeting old friends, half but ghosts.
It was true for Xue Meng now, but when had it ever been false for Taxian-jun? In the past life, Wushan Palace had been emptied, leaving him alone. No one remained; he couldn't remember where he'd left the censer in his room, nor wear those old clothes from his youth. Sometimes, he'd blurt a joke from his student days, but the faces around him were respectful and tense; no one knew what he was talking about. No one understood him. All who could were dead or gone.
Taxian-jun made his way slowly to the Heavenly Lake. White fog filled up the skies, and snow gathered in drifts on the lake's surface. He stood unmoving, like a statue that had no heart and felt no chill, and let the snow cover him.
"Chu Wanning," he whispered. "If, back then…"
If…what? He didn't continue. His lashes fluttered as he closed his eyes. For him there was no such thing as the past. He was Emperor Taxian-jun, the highest lord of the cultivation realm. He didn't know regret; he never thought of turning back. What was done was done. He would speak not of repentance nor defeat. It didn't matter if his body was ruined or all his kin forsook him—this was the road he'd chosen. He would press on despite all the thorny brambles that blocked his way.
But here, surrounded by endless horizon, beneath the vast and snowy skies where no one would see or know, Taxian-jun stood for a long time, his hands behind his back. Then he did something unimaginable: He sank to his knees and kowtowed, in that place where Chu Wanning had died in battle.
Once, twice, a third time.
Taxian-jun raised his head. Beneath his hood, frost had rimed his lashes. His expression was solemn, unreadable. He rose, as if having accomplished something he'd wanted to do for a very long time. With a snap of his black cloak, he swept silently to the point of greatest spiritual energy on Mount Kunlun.
When the emperor moved, no one could stop him. Shi Mingjing had chosen very well indeed: He was the most powerful spiritual force in the world, possessed of unmatched strength and cultivation.
The Space-Time Gate of Life and Death would open today.