Chapter 31#
Falling Out#
The sky grew darker and darker, clouds descending to envelop heaven and earth.
Zhu Anning didn’t know how long he had been kneeling on the ground. He shivered in the rain, weeping uncontrollably.
Like an abandoned child who knew everything was beyond retrieval, he felt that nothing he did would help, with no recourse but to cry. He tried to evoke that person’s pity and compassion, but the other party had been hurt too deeply by him and was weary even of a single glance.
—The person who would feel heartache for his tears was only the person who cared about him. Once, his senior brother had cared about him so much, but now, his senior brother had been pushed away by his own hands.
Zhu Anning’s crying gradually diminished, becoming very weak, until finally only occasional sobs remained.
An indescribable fear struck; he didn’t dare to cry anymore.
He carefully raised his head, cowering as he looked around.
It was so dark.
He was so afraid…
At this moment, Zhu Anning felt as if he had returned to that gloomy dungeon from many years ago.
At that time, even when pressed to the ground with a knife slashing his back, he grit his teeth and deathly restrained himself from shedding tears. It wasn’t until he came to the side of the Young Master that he cried loudly for the first time.
Now, the person who pulled him out of hell had let go, and he had fallen back into hell once more. Whether it was the deep, long street in front of him or the towering State Preceptor’s Manor behind him, both seemed to harbor terrifying monsters ready to tear him to pieces at any moment. The person who stood in front of him to shield him from the wind and rain had departed, and the storms of this world rushed toward him a thousandfold. He didn’t dare to cry or make a sound, only able to curl up his body dazedly and helplessly, scanning the dangerous world around him with eyes full of fear.
…He was afraid.
Perhaps he had never truly walked out of the nightmare of those years. Zhu Anning had been grateful countless times for meeting the Young Master and gaining a new life. He was truly lucky, but now that luck had been taken back, and he once again became that little blood slave whom no one cared about, as lowly as a blade of grass.
Zhu Anning hugged his body, shivering. He buried his face in his knees, revealing a pair of frightened, dark eyes. He didn’t dare to make a sound or move, cautiously observing the world that seemed to have turned unfamiliar in an instant.
A despicable person like him… even the Young Master didn’t want him anymore… what was the point of living?
Zhu Anning let out a despairing whimper and quickly covered his mouth again.
The heavy rain dousing his head allowed him to regain a shred of calm.
No… he couldn’t die yet.
He had done so many wrong things and hadn’t yet worked to make amends. He had hurt his senior brother so deeply, even causing his senior brother’s path of cultivation to be destroyed. He had not yet repaid everything that originally belonged to his senior brother; how could he die so easily?
He was not fit to live, but neither was he fit to die.
*
When Li Guanghan found Zhu Anning, the latter was sitting in the rain with his knees pulled to his chest.
“What happened?”
Standing there, the wind and rain avoided Li Guanghan, making him appear even more like a transcendent deity. Looking at his disheveled younger disciple, his heart skipped a beat.
Zhu Anning didn’t move.
Li Guanghan’s brow furrowed, and he leaned down, intending to pick Zhu Anning up. However, Zhu Anning shifted his body, avoiding Li Guanghan’s movement.
Li Guanghan was stunned for a moment, his frown deepening.
“Senior brother is gone,” Zhu Anning turned his head, his voice hoarse and despairing, “senior brother is gone.”
For a moment, Li Guanghan couldn’t fully comprehend the despair in Zhu Anning’s words.
He knew Yin Yuheng had already left the State Preceptor’s Manor. Decoction of the medicinal ingredients had taken some time, and when he went to find his eldest disciple with the medicine, he saw only an empty room. At that moment, Li Guanghan even rarely felt a shred of anger—he was still injured, and in such heavy rain, where was that child going?
Still being petulant with him?
Li Guanghan couldn’t clearly describe the feeling in his heart, and finally, in his agitation, he simply stopped thinking too much about it.
“Today is your birthday; how did it end up like this?” Li Guanghan said, “Return to the manor first.”
But Zhu Anning refused to move.
“Senior brother won’t come back,” he murmured with his head lowered.
Senior brother wouldn’t come back; what was the point of him staying in the State Preceptor’s Manor?
He used despicable means, deceived his Master, and hurt his senior brother. He was a liar, a nauseating villain. He had possessed everything that shouldn’t have belonged to him and shamelessly took pride in it.
Even now, was he going to continue the deception?
Zhu Anning’s eyes were red, yet his tone was flat and rigid, as still as an ancient well: “Everything was a lie to you.”
The hand Li Guanghan was about to use to pull Zhu Anning paused, not having reacted yet.
“…What?”
Zhu Anning wiped the rainwater from his face and said indifferently: “I am not the person who saved you back then.”
With a “rumble,” thunder came from high above, shaking heaven and earth. The rain fell even harder.
The wind and rain were too great; Li Guanghan felt that perhaps he hadn’t heard clearly. He was about to speak, but heard Zhu Anning repeat every word again:
“The person who saved you back then wasn’t me.”
“…”
Aside from the sound of rain, only a deathly silence remained.
After an unknown amount of time, Zhu Anning heard Li Guanghan’s voice come from ahead: “I have investigated thoroughly; your identity and experiences all match up…”
“They are all fake, identities that were arranged…”
Li Guanghan interrupted him sternly: “Impossible! The Spirit Severing stage can calculate heavenly secrets and trace origins. I calculated it; you are that child who had a fated connection with me back then… you just lost your memory.”
Li Guanghan’s voice rose slightly, but not as if to convince others, but rather to convince himself.
But Zhu Anning didn’t want to hear Li Guanghan continue.
“I don’t have amnesia now; I remember everything very clearly,” Zhu Anning said calmly. “Back then, I was just a small blood slave in the Fengliang Prefectural Manor, living precariously, not knowing if I’d see tomorrow.”
“The injuries to my spiritual veins were also left from having flesh cut and blood drawn. That person whose heart was struck by a demon beast to save you wasn’t me.”
“Someone arranged an identity and experiences for me to get close to you.”
“I don’t know if something went wrong when you were calculating heavenly secrets, or if someone tampered with it… but I know that I have never been the person you were looking for.”
The rain drifted, and the wind howled.
After a long time… a hand suddenly gripped Zhu Anning’s neck.
Suffocating, Zhu Anning tilted his head back. Through the rain curtain, he seemed to see Li Guanghan’s eyes filled with madness and ferocity. An invisible, surging malevolence made Zhu Anning’s whole body ache, causing him to instinctively begin to struggle.
He was lifted off the ground by Li Guanghan, who was gripping his neck.
“…Whether it’s true or false, we’ll know after testing.” Li Guanghan squeezed out a few suppressed, raspy syllables from his throat. Zhu Anning’s face turned beet red, his hands and feet cold, unable to breathe.
In a daze, Zhu Anning thought that Li Guanghan at this moment was simply like a madman.
A sharp pain suddenly came from his sea of consciousness as cold spiritual power surged in dominantly, exploding within it. Zhu Anning knew that as long as Li Guanghan wished, he could destroy his consciousness at any moment.
“Speak,” Li Guanghan’s cold voice sounded in his ear, “are you truly the person who saved me back then or not?”
“…No.”
Li Guanghan’s face fell abruptly, like the suppressed surface of the sea before a hurricane.
The hand gripping Zhu Anning’s neck tightened unconsciously for a few degrees… suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the jade pendant hanging at Zhu Anning’s waist.
Li Guanghan abruptly let go, and Zhu Anning fell to the ground.
Li Guanghan’s tone became strangely gentle.
“How could you not be him? This jade pendant on you…”
This jade pendant was clearly almost identical to the one that boy had given him back then, obviously from the same hand.
Li Guanghan still remembered the boy saying that the jade pendant was carved by his own hands.
Li Guanghan bent down, wanting to touch the jade pendant, but was suddenly preceded by Zhu Anning.
Ignoring the marks on his neck and the pain, Zhu Anning gripped the jade pendant tightly, protecting it in his palm, and stared fiercely at Li Guanghan: “Don’t touch it!”
This was one of the few things his senior brother had left him.
No one was allowed to touch it.
Zhu Anning carefully wiped the jade pendant and held it to his heart.
“This is a birthday gift from senior brother,” Zhu Anning closed his eyes, “I already have nothing left…”
But Li Guanghan was stunned.
“…Who? Who gave it to you?”
“My senior brother,” Zhu Anning’s tone was obsessed and gentle, with a kind of despairing calm, “He carved it himself and gave it to me personally…”
Zhu Anning lowered his head and gently kissed the jade pendant in his hand.