Chapter 56#

The Apocalyptic Heavenly Master Who Knew Nothing of the World#

The moment they reached the third floor, Qin Yi followed Lu Heng into his room with a perfectly composed expression. When Lu Heng’s gaze swept over him, he declared solemnly, “We’re a legally married couple, certified by the Heavenly Dao itself.”

Lu Heng’s lips quirked upward. “I just wanted to ask — aren’t you going to change clothes first?”

Qin Yi looked down at his own outfit, tattered and smeared with blood. He shrugged. “Anyway, everything in your closet is mine too.”

However, the relentless high-intensity fighting had left both of them utterly exhausted. The moment they entered the room and spotted that soft, inviting bed, they shed their clothes without a word and plunged headlong into it, collapsing into a deep, dreamless sleep.

In a haze, Lu Heng had a dream — a beautiful one. In the dream, he was in that familiar cold pool, his limbs intertwined with someone’s, inseparable as one. Except that the pool water felt far too warm, and the sensation against his skin was far too real — so real that it seemed as though he was truly being held in someone’s arms.

Lu Heng woke up.

He opened his eyes and found himself lying in a bathtub, surrounded by warm water. Behind him was not the hard, cold surface of the tub, but someone’s chest — a pair of strong arms wrapped securely around him.

Lu Heng shifted slightly, uncomfortable.

“You’re awake?” Qin Yi’s voice came from behind him.

“How did I end up here?” Lu Heng asked.

“You looked so pitiful, covered in filth like a cream puff that snuck out and rolled around for three days, I couldn’t help wanting to give you a proper wash. Come on, close your eyes.” Qin Yi reached over to the shelf beside them, grabbed a bottle of shampoo, and worked up a lather in Lu Heng’s soft hair.

“Cream puff?” Once his eyes were closed, every sensation sharpened. Lu Heng felt the hand on his scalp pressing with just the right amount of force — so comfortable that it made him want to fall asleep all over again.

“Mm, a cat I had when I was little. Adorable — fluffy and soft, just like you.”

Lu Heng felt Qin Yi’s hand withdraw. A moment later, water streamed down from above his scalp. Terrified it would get into his eyes, Lu Heng squeezed them shut even harder and involuntarily shrank his neck.

Qin Yi let out a soft chuckle. “You look even more like her now. Puff was exactly the same when she took a bath — scared out of her wits, yet obediently curled up in a ball, not daring to move.”

A soft towel was draped over Lu Heng’s head.

He could finally open his eyes. Lu Heng frowned in thought for a moment, then blurted out, “You like me because I’m like the cat you used to have?”

“Pfft.” Qin Yi buried his face against the side of Lu Heng’s neck, muffling his laughter. “I’m not a pervert.”

Lu Heng felt the vibration travel through his own back and realized just how stupid what he’d just said sounded. Seeing that Qin Yi couldn’t stop laughing, he slammed his palm down on the water’s surface, splashing a faceful of water onto the person behind him.

“If it were just because you remind me of Puff, why would I want to do things like this to you?” Qin Yi’s right hand slowly sank beneath the water’s surface while his left hand gently turned Lu Heng’s face toward him.

The room filled with the warmth of spring.

The night was clear, the stars sparse. A cool breeze carried away the lingering heat from within.

Lu Heng sat cross-legged on the bed, a trace of frustration on his face. He felt that tomorrow morning’s training schedule was about to be thrown off.

Qin Yi’s hands pressed gently against the small of Lu Heng’s back, his palm subtly raising its temperature using his fire-type ability. “Was I too much just now?”

“I forgot to cycle the dual-cultivation technique. What a waste,” Lu Heng said.

Qin Yi sighed with a hint of helplessness. “Senior Brother, this isn’t just about cultivation — it’s also about marital intimacy.”

But Lu Heng completely ignored him, stubbornly refusing to read between the lines. “Still, cycling the technique now would be more effective than usual.”

With that, Lu Heng closed his eyes and began cultivating.

What could he do? He’d chosen this partner himself, so whatever he said went. Qin Yi reached out and smoothed the tousled curls on the head of the person before him, who was now fully immersed in cultivation. Then he too sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began to contemplate the array formation insights that their founding ancestor had imprinted into his mind.

By the time Lu Heng emerged from his cultivation, the sky had long since brightened. The space beside him was empty. Lu Heng looked around and spotted a figure on the balcony. He pushed open the door and stepped out, only to be immediately choked by a cloud of smoke, coughing several times.

Qin Yi turned around. Seeing Lu Heng, he hastily crushed out the cigarette between his fingers.

“You smoke?”

“I smoked when I was young and reckless. After enlisting, I realized smoking impairs reaction time, so I quit,” Qin Yi said.

“Something troubling you?” Lu Heng asked.

“…” Qin Yi flicked the cigarette butt from between his fingers into the trash can. “The seal’s time limit is almost up.”

“What?” Lu Heng actually already knew about this. The sect’s records had mentioned it, and now they were rapidly approaching the point in the original timeline when Yunlan was destined to die.

“The great array that the founding ancestor set to seal the demon realm — its time limit is almost up,” Qin Yi said. “In his original plan, by the time the seal expired, this realm’s ley lines would already be self-generating spiritual energy, so there would be no need to fear the demonic qi pouring in from the demon realm.”

Under the current circumstances, if the seal broke, it would be adding frost to a snowstorm. The world had already begun merging with the demon realm — even spawning low-level demons like the Zombie King. Once the seal failed, this realm would likely be absorbed entirely into the demon realm.

“There is a solution, though,” Qin Yi continued. “If we set the Nine-Cycle Mutual Generation Array on the ley lines, we could convert all the demonic qi in this world into spiritual energy. But my cultivation level isn’t even close to being able to lay that array. For the first time, I feel this powerless.” He smiled bitterly.

“There’s a way,” Lu Heng patted Qin Yi’s shoulder. While Qin Yi’s talent and comprehension were extraordinary, his cultivation time was still relatively short, and some things simply weren’t clear to him yet.

When Qin Yi’s eyes lit up, Lu Heng continued. “We can use the already perfected array inside the mustard seed space.”

Qin Yi frowned slightly in confusion. “That Nine-Cycle Mutual Generation Array is set in an independent minor world — there’s no way to extract it whole. Even if we removed the array components piece by piece, the elements are all interconnected. Even if we arranged them exactly as they were, it might not activate.”

“What I mean is, we merge the mustard seed space directly with the major world at the ley line,” Lu Heng said. “The array would then integrate into the ley line itself.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s head out right away — once we’ve dealt with this biggest threat, we can finally live in peace,” Qin Yi said.

“Our strength isn’t sufficient for that yet. The seal can still hold for some time. Let’s use this period to intensify our cultivation,” Lu Heng said.

With that hidden demon no longer stirring up trouble, Lu Heng’s days passed in tranquility. Each day was spent cultivating or venturing out to hunt for crystal cores needed for practice, occasionally using the dual-cultivation technique to accelerate his progress. It was all becoming almost too pleasant to leave behind.

【Host 666, one day remains until Yunlan’s scheduled time of death.】 The little assistant appeared without ceremony, shattering this peaceful and blissful stretch of time.

【Understood.】

During this exchange, Lu Heng was practicing swordplay in the courtyard. Not far away, Mu Fei sat beside a stone table, spoon-feeding Jiang Sile bite by bite. After only a few mouthfuls, Jiang Sile suddenly flipped the bowl, jumped up, and cursed in a rage: “Who asked you to be so fake?! Weren’t you off hooking up with that bitch Pan Rongxi?!”

Mu Fei’s face and head were covered in oil splatters. He simply wiped his face and said gently, “Xiao Le, don’t make a fuss. Let’s eat nicely. You need strength from eating to fight monsters.”

“Fight monsters! Fight monsters! I have powers — I want to fight monsters!” Jiang Sile slowly crouched down and started giggling foolishly.

Jiang Sile had gone mad. The forced severance of his bond with the jade token had damaged his soul. When he regained consciousness from his coma, he had become this mindless wreck.

Everything Jiang Sile had done had been recorded by that demon entity on a memory pearl and stored in a space. From the very beginning — using Cangming’s lingering aura on the jade token to infiltrate the Heavenly Master Sect’s grand array and steal the spiritual source. To later, after fully succumbing to demonic corruption, tampering with the crystal cores given to Pan Rongxi — at a critical moment, reversing the array within the core to convert spiritual energy into demonic qi, thereby infecting Pan Rongxi. And using Song Kunyu as a pawn to sow discord among three major forces, manipulating them into leading a large portion of their combat strength away from the base before the zombie siege, with the aim of stripping Qin Yi and Lu Heng of their support.

Though every error Jiang Sile had committed was under the demon’s manipulation and influence, the demon’s appearance itself was triggered by the deep malice already residing within him. Where right ended and wrong began was hard to determine — all one could do was sigh at the cruelties of fate.

Jiang Sile’s rebirth had also been exposed. Through his ravings and some of the scenes captured in the memory pearl, Mu Fei had pieced this truth together. Only this could explain the origin of everything — the source of the malice in Jiang Sile’s heart.

During this period, Mu Fei had spiraled into agonizing self-reproach. In their previous life, he had abandoned Jiang Sile, and later ended up with Pan Rongxi — the very person who had driven Jiang Sile to his death. The guilt was nearly crushing him. Were it not for the fact that Jiang Sile still needed someone to care for him, he might not have found the courage to go on living.

The entanglement between these two no longer concerned Lu Heng. The only person on his mind now was Qin Yi.

The night deepened. Less than a day remained before Yunlan’s scheduled time of death. Lu Heng propped himself up on one arm and gazed at the sleeping face beside him. The blanket had slipped down, exposing his bare chest. Lu Heng didn’t bother pulling it back up. Between his two fingers, he held a Peace of Mind talisman. After a moment of hesitation, he pressed it to Qin Yi’s forehead.

The talisman dissolved into a soft light and sank into Qin Yi’s mind. His breathing immediately grew even deeper. Lu Heng put back on his original outfit — the cross-collared combat robe he hadn’t worn in so long. It took quite a bit of effort.

He slung the Dichen sword across his back and left just as he had first arrived — except this time, his hand held a jade token.

With his greatly increased cultivation, Lu Heng reached the foot of the sect’s mountain just as the first hint of dawn whitened the horizon. This was largely thanks to a custom-made map that Qin Yi had meticulously drawn for him after their last visit.

Lu Heng unconsciously tightened his grip on the map and was about to start climbing when a sharp pain pierced his heart. Memories surged up, unbidden.

It was the memory Lu Heng least wanted to recall — the memory of Shikong’s descent into demonic corruption. That white-robed monk, as clear as the wind and bright as the moon, had suddenly sensed something and forcefully broken through an illusion to escape. Only to arrive in time to witness the death of the person he loved. He had fallen into demonic corruption on the spot.

Lu Heng clenched his fists, bit down hard on his lower lip, and turned back the way he had come. No matter what, if this was the person whose heart was intertwined with his own, he couldn’t make such a hasty decision on his behalf. The other party deserved to know the truth — to have the choice.

But before he had even left the forest, he saw a tall figure approaching head-on.

Before Lu Heng could say anything, the figure flickered and appeared directly in front of him.

It was Qin Yi. And yet it wasn’t.

Something was wrong with him.

“Where are you trying to go — abandoning me again?” The person before him had bloodshot eyes. Though their features were entirely different from another’s, at this moment they overlapped perfectly with Shikong’s. “Are you trying to die alone again?”

Lu Heng tried to explain, but Qin Yi seized his lips in a vicious kiss, leaving no room for gentleness. The taste of iron rust quickly spread through Lu Heng’s mouth. Lu Heng had intended to let Qin Yi vent, to wait for him to gradually calm down.

But the man grew more and more extreme in his actions. He shoved Lu Heng to the ground, his right hand clamping around Lu Heng’s neck with a grip that brooked no escape, kissing him with even greater frenzy.

Seeing that Qin Yi had nearly lost himself to madness — completely unable to hear any words — and afraid that he would spiral into demonic corruption if this continued, Lu Heng gritted his teeth and delivered a sharp knife-hand strike to the back of Qin Yi’s neck, knocking him unconscious.

Lu Heng pushed the man off him and rolled to his feet. Then he hoisted Qin Yi over his shoulder and headed toward the sect. He touched his own lip, where a deep wound from the bite had been left, and cheered himself up with dark humor: Thank goodness sword cultivators have decent stamina — otherwise I’d have to drag this man up the mountain.

When Qin Yi woke up, he found himself on the sect’s cliff’s edge. He sat up in a panic, only to see Lu Heng sitting not far from him.

“Why did you leave without saying goodbye? How did I end up here?” Questions swirled in Qin Yi’s mind.

In the dead of night, when he’d first woken up, he’d found the space beside him already cold. Dichen and the jade token were both gone. Though he didn’t know why, an overwhelming terror had engulfed him. After that, he had sunk into boundless darkness.

Lu Heng simply smiled at him. “About leaving without saying goodbye — that was my mistake. I’ve already realized my error, so let’s not dwell on it.”

Seeing Lu Heng wear such a rare, gentle smile, the flicker of anger in Qin Yi’s heart dissipated at once. He stepped forward and ruffled Lu Heng’s hair. “Other than abandoning me and leaving, there’s nothing I could ever blame you for.”

Lu Heng caught Qin Yi’s hand and rose to his feet. “Do you remember how the Everlasting Lamps in that hall of the sect went out?”

This was something Lu Heng had told him before. “A place rich in spiritual energy suddenly exposed itself, attracting a zombie swarm…”

“The merge between the mustard seed space and the major world requires time. During that period, the spiritual source serving as the array’s core will attract endless waves of zombies,” Lu Heng nodded.

Hearing this, Qin Yi understood why Lu Heng had tried to leave alone. “You actually wanted to guard this array core by yourself!”

Lu Heng didn’t try to hide anything. “That was my original plan. A matter of certain death — I thought I should shoulder it alone. But I regretted it before I even reached the foot of the mountain. Between cultivators who share a bond, we shouldn’t keep secrets from each other, and I shouldn’t have made the decision unilaterally on your behalf.”

With that, Lu Heng extended his hand to Qin Yi. “This journey may well be one-way. What is your choice?”

The same scene. Just a short while ago, right here, the same person had reached out to him with the same gesture.

“Does that even need asking? As long as I’m with you — even if the road ahead is mountains of blades and seas of fire, there’ll be no regrets.” Qin Yi laughed heartily and gripped the hand before him tightly.

Once more, they were in the familiar enclosed space, but Lu Heng’s feelings were entirely different. At the final moment, that person still held his hand firmly. In his daze, Lu Heng even thought he heard something, faint and almost imagined: “Wait for me.”

“Little assistant, open the screen real quick. Let’s write up the closure report and get started on the next commission.”

The little assistant looked at the revitalized Lu Heng before him and inexplicably felt a pang of being force-fed a mouthful of dog food.

The grand array that Lu Heng and Qin Yi had set transformed all the demonic qi rampaging across the continent into spiritual energy via the ley lines. More and more people awakened their abilities — or more precisely, activated their spiritual roots. The members of the Blade Team, under Yu Shan’s leadership, followed the documents Lu Heng had left behind and found the Heavenly Master Sect. After paying respects to the twin characters “Heaven” and “Earth,” they lit the Everlasting Lamps, and the sect’s legacy continued once more.

Even after the seal eventually failed and demonic qi poured in from the demon realm, the Nine-Cycle Mutual Generation Array turned it instead into an inexhaustible source of spiritual energy. This low-level realm rapidly upgraded into a cultivation world. And the Heavenly Master Sect — even when cultivation sects flourished across the land — remained the undisputed foremost sect.

The site of the ley line below the cliff became sacred ground for cultivators. Not only because of the Nine-Cycle Mutual Generation Array that supplied the entire realm with spiritual energy, but because of the two jade statues at the array’s core — endlessly washed by spiritual energy over ten thousand years, never decaying, transformed into jade.

The two jade statues stood side by side. One formed hand seals with his right hand; the other held a sword horizontally before his chest with his left. Until the very last moment of their lives, both remained in battle stance. Their other hands were clasped tightly together.

These were the two Holy Venerables of the Heavenly Master Sect, figures of standing comparable to the Founding Ancestor himself. It was said that to protect the Nine-Cycle Mutual Generation Array from forming, the two had used their own bodies to resist an army of thousands of demons. Only after the array was completed did they release the vital energy they had been desperately clinging to, and perished from exhaustion.

After a moment’s thought, Lu Heng opened the footage concerning Yunlan’s brother, Mu Fei.

The fates of these two were quite poignant.

After Mu Fei had devoted years to caring for Jiang Sile, he heard that a certain place had a spiritual elixir capable of curing madness, and he resolved to seek it out. He never expected that not a single member of the Blade Team was willing to go with him.

The mention of it made everyone’s faces darken with fury. “If it weren’t for that Jiang Sile, Boss Qin wouldn’t be dead! The only reason he’s still alive is because he went insane — and you want us to find medicine for him? You’re not insane too, are you?”

Some sneered: “That brother of yours — Jiang Sile was indirectly responsible for his death, wasn’t he? And you’re still going out of your way to find medicine for him. Truly… the halo of the Holy Father shines upon all.”

Mu Fei only said quietly, “It wasn’t Xiao Le’s fault.”

Later, Mu Fei went to search for the elixir alone. He never returned.

The screen split in two. On one side, it froze on a corpse in the wilderness, half-eaten by beasts beyond recognition. On the other, it froze on Jiang Sile, wandering the streets, scavenging through garbage to survive.

Though Lu Heng felt a measure of sympathy, he understood — this was the bitter fruit of their own actions, and there was no one else to blame.

“Let’s just start the next commission,” Lu Heng said to the little assistant.

“Aren’t you going to take a few days to rest?”

“For me, being in a mission world is resting.”