Chapter 14#
Parting Hatred#
The white mist had drifted to A Yue’s side without anyone noticing when, enveloping her entirely.
Feng Xian Yu’s fingers, frozen mid-air, trembled slightly. His heart leaped with joy, and seeing A Yue’s dazed expression, as if still in a dream, he knew that the deeper A Yue immersed herself, the weaker her control over this illusion became.
Within the white mist lingered the last image Yan Pei saw before death—A Yue with blood-stained hands.
Feng Xian Yu covertly circulated spiritual energy, forcing it to flow through his meridians. The joints, as if welded shut, were pried open bit by bit, the pain akin to cutting flesh. Sweat immediately beaded on his forehead.
Like a newborn infant who hasn’t yet learned to control his own body, he finally broke free from his restraints after an incense stick’s worth of time, soaked in sweat, and struck fiercely toward A Yue’s chest.
Simultaneously, from the corner of his eye, Feng Xian Yu saw Ling Zhao’s sword edge closing in.
Zhuo Yu had realized!
Feng Xian Yu’s palm wind swept before A Yue’s eyes as she finally awoke from her dream. She instinctively retreated, but quickly sensed the icy sword intent behind her. Trapped between two attacks with no escape, she decisively drew the bone flute—
Right now!
A sly, fox-like curve tugged at Feng Xian Yu’s lips. His originally aggressive hand suddenly changed from striking to grasping. A Yue jolted with alarm, sensing trouble, but a flash of red streaked past.
Feng Xian Yu, quick-eyed and swift-handed, snatched the bone flute from her sleeve.
Seeing this, A Yue forgot everything else and instinctively lunged to retrieve it.
As she reached out, a chill spread from her arm to her back. She looked down in disbelief—a gleaming sword tip protruded from her right shoulder. Behind her stood Zhuo Yu’s ice-cold face. Blood spilled forth, excruciatingly painful and chillingly cold. Strangely, A Yue’s first reaction wasn’t pain, but a dazed flash of Yan Pei’s face before her eyes.
Had it hurt this much for him too?
Feng Xian Yu, without caring about anything else, pressed the bone flute to his lips and blew. Seeing this, A Yue struggled with all her might.
Just then, a heavy, broken “pfft” sound came from mid-air—
Like the sound of flatulence.
Feng Xian Yu: “…”
Time seemed stretched infinitely in that moment.
Feng Xian Yu’s face turned ashen, feeling that all the face he’d saved in half a lifetime was lost to this wretched excuse for a flute sound. What was going on? Even if it couldn’t sound good, it should at least sound like a flute—no, like some kind of musical instrument!
A Yue’s arm trembled from the wound, her eyes burning crimson as she burst into harsh laughter: “Did you think just anyone could play this flute?”
“Whatever.” Feng Xian Yu lifted his chin, shaking the bone flute in his hand with a roguish tone. “Whether it plays or not, it’s in my hands now.”
A Yue let out a cold laugh. Her form turned ghostly as she vanished from Zhuo Yu’s sword, reappearing before Feng Xian Yu in an instant. With a sharp shriek that cut through the air, she raised her blade and struck. The knife, stained with her blood, instantly released layer upon layer of boundless black shadows, like a sea of demons, as the overwhelming blade force crashed down with the weight of a mountain.
“—Give! It! Back!”
Feng Xian Yu hastily retreated a step while biting his fingertip in the gale. He quickly traced half a blood-red talisman in the air and, before completing it, hurriedly thrust it outward.
The talisman instantly formed a massive barrier. With a thunderous clang, it barely held against the blade’s momentum, scraping harshly against the knife edge with a piercing, teeth-grinding screech. The resulting windstorm in the cave swept Feng Xian Yu off the ground and flung him violently outward.
At the critical moment, a flash of white shot over. It caught Feng Xian Yu in an embrace, shifted positions mid-air, and then both flew dozens of zhang before crashing into the mountain wall with a deafening boom, creating a massive crater.
Seeing stars, Feng Xian Yu couldn’t get up for a long while, feeling as if every bone in his body had been dislocated.
When he pushed himself up, he realized Zhuo Yu was beneath him, having cushioned his fall.
“…Cough, cough, cough… Holy sh*t!” Feng Xian Yu jolted and scrambled off Zhuo Yu. “Zhuo Yu, are you okay? Are you hurt? Where does it hurt?”
Zhuo Yu coughed in the dust, his body still tangled with Feng Xian Yu’s red gauze, which had been cut into strips by the blade wind. Without a word, he used his sword to support himself and stood up, indicating he was fine.
“You’re incredible.” Feng Xian Yu praised sincerely, then asked, “What about this flute?”
Before Zhuo Yu could answer, a faint wind sound came from the darkness ahead.
Feng Xian Yu’s ears twitched sharply. Then, resigned to his fate, he tossed the bone flute to Zhuo Yu, summoned Qi Qi with a backhand, and held it vertically before himself.
Zhuo Yu formed a sword seal. Intricate, spiraling spiritual patterns spread from the sword guard with a whoosh. The thin blade seemed like ice frozen for nine feet just beginning to melt, exuding a biting coldness.
Feng Xian Yu took a deep breath. When he closed his eyes and opened them again, his irises had become redder than blood. Flowing crimson spiritual energy swirled like smoke around his eyes, even drifting outward. A crystalline, shimmering string stretched taut in his palm, and a burning, nearly purple spiritual arrow gradually materialized in full, its heat causing the surrounding air to shimmer and distort.
“Swoosh—”
The spiritual arrow left the string, and simultaneously, a magnificent snow-colored sword aura followed closely behind.
The two streaks of light intertwined as they shot forward, just managing to meet the black demon blade. Spiritual energy exploded within this small snake den, and a massive cloud of smoke roared up into the sky.
Zhuo Yu glanced at Feng Xian Yu, then fiercely wiped his palm across Ling Zhao’s blade.
The sword edge instantly turned crimson.
Feng Xian Yu’s mind went blank. Zhuo Yu’s blood soaked through the white bone flute, which immediately turned a dark, bloody hue while also gaining a certain crystalline gloss. Like someone on the verge of death from coughing, it greedily drank his blood in large gulps, humming and trembling in his palm as if alive, twitching uncontrollably.
It tirelessly consumed Zhuo Yu’s blood.
“What are you doing?!”
Feng Xian Yu roared, the blood-red color stinging his eyes. He was about to knock the bone flute away in two quick steps when, before his hand could fall, a faint “crack” sounded. Though so subtle, it froze both Feng Xian Yu and A Yue’s movements.
The bone flute seemed to have cracked from being overfilled with Zhuo Yu’s blood. After futilely resisting, it reluctantly split with a single crack.
At the same time, a massive, jarring fissure appeared in the illusion’s sky, hanging starkly above their heads, nearly splitting the entire heaven in two.
“No…” A Yue’s lips trembled. “No—!!!”
She no longer cared about Feng Xian Yu and Zhuo Yu, immediately turning to race back toward the cave where Yan Pei lay.
But no matter how fast A Yue ran, she couldn’t outpace the shattering of the bone flute and the illusion. With each step she took, the earth cracked; with each further step, the sky dissolved like bubbles. Finally, everything shattered like a dropped porcelain vase, scattering into countless fragments. Like spring’s arrival melting snow, nothing remained in the end.
Only the snake corpses, the scattered remains of the cultivators, and the “room” she had meticulously prepared for Yan Pei.
And Yan Pei’s body, now lying on the dew-covered grass.
Time returned to its proper course, racing forward with bared fangs and claws. Yan Pei’s gentle, scholarly face—that visage etched in A Yue’s heart, seemingly eternal—rapidly shriveled and rotted under time’s lash, leaving only a hideous, stinking countenance in A Yue’s arms. She could hardly believe this was once her Yan Lang.
A Yue’s face was deathly pale. Suddenly, Feng Xian Yu’s voice echoed inappropriately in her mind.
“…Why would anyone love rotting flesh?”
Xiang Wan and the others were abruptly pulled back to the real world. Before they could react, they saw A Yue on the grass not far away, clutching a rotting corpse, her face blank, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes but unsure whether they should fall.
Zhuo Yu opened his hand. Fragments of the bone flute fell like petals, piling up at his feet.
Blood from his palm continued to drip down Ling Zhao, staining the hem of his robe a bloody red. Feng Xian Yu seemed frozen solid. After a long moment, his trembling hand slowly rose. His porcelain-white fingers slid up along Ling Zhao’s blade until they touched Zhuo Yu’s blood.
In that instant, a firework exploded in Feng Xian Yu’s mind.
He saw one of the scenes from his past life he least wanted to revisit.
Feng Xian Yu, only son of the Qingdu Mountain sect leader, and his estranged senior brother and dao companion Zhuo Yu had both ascended to the Deity Transformation stage in the twenty-third year of the Jin Hui era, earning the titles “Mirror Bell Immortal Lord” and “Xuan Li Sword Lord.” They were the outstanding talents of their generation, riding a wave of glory and unparalleled in the world. Yet there were two unforgivable crimes.
First, Feng Xian Yu inexplicably fell to demonic cultivation, bloodily massacring the sect, even killing his father Feng Qianqiu by his own hand.
Second, few could approach a Deity Transformation stage cultivator except their dao companion. Feng Xian Yu, claiming he wanted a life-or-death duel with Zhuo Yu, took advantage of the dao companion bond and shot an arrow directly through Zhuo Yu’s heart.
Though he later self-detonated his golden core, taking the Demon Lord with him in death, it was only seen as a case of thieves falling out—evil punished by evil. Yet the curses continued unabated, proclaiming that Feng Xian Yu deserved to die, that his death was too merciful.
Qingdu Mountain lay in silent stillness. The newly constructed halls were only half-finished.
Zhuo Yu walked up the long mountain path. The autumn chill was bone-piercing. The disciples he encountered along the way all wore mournful expressions, their eyes swollen like peaches, dressed in hemp mourning clothes. Upon seeing Zhuo Yu, they bowed, their voices hoarse from crying: “Sword Lord.”
Zhuo Yu looked straight ahead, not glancing aside. Behind him came words laced with hatred, spoken through gritted teeth.
“Why didn’t you kill Feng Xian Yu?”
“Doesn’t Senior Brother have absolutely no feelings for Feng Xian Yu? Why did you still spare that wretch’s life?”
“Those brothers and sisters—weren’t they all affectionately calling Feng Xian Yu ‘Little Senior Brother’? How could he be so cruel, his hands not even trembling when he killed? Senior Brother Xiang Wan couldn’t even close his eyes! What right does he have to live? Murder must be avenged—why does Feng Xian Yu still live?!”
The wind seemed to carry the scent of Qingdu Mountain’s unwashed blood. The disciples felt an boundless chill pressing down, forcing their knees to tremble, nearly buckling. Yet they gritted their teeth and held on, refusing to bow their heads.
Someone suddenly looked up, their face full of hatred, malice overflowing: “Was I wrong, Sword Lord?”
The pressure bearing down on their backs intensified. He heard his own spine creaking and cracking. A surge of inexplicable courage drove him to shout recklessly: “Doesn’t Feng Xian Yu deserve to die?!”
The questioning screeched almost to the point of distortion, piercing through Qingdu Mountain’s overcast sky.
It was a young man with a severed arm.
Instantly, the gazes of all the survivors turned toward them. Countless pairs of eyes, all fixed on Zhuo Yu’s expressionless face.
Zhuo Yu said nothing. He looked toward the Wutong Hall that had been hacked to pieces, seeming to see that person still standing there in wedding robes, tilting his head with an embarrassed smile.
After a long moment, the disciples suddenly felt the spiritual pressure on them ease. They looked up in disbelief to see their senior brother—the sword cultivator—continuing upward as if he hadn’t heard a thing. His white dharma robe, his jade crown towering high, his thumb pressed firmly against the sheath of his Ling Zhao sword. His upright posture seemed even more cold and ruthless than his spiritual sword.
After the Qingdu Mountain bloodbath, the other six major sects, led by the Green Sparrow Sect, joined forces to pursue Feng Xian Yu, finally capturing him at the Parting Hatred Sea.
Zhuo Yu arrived with his sword drawn. Everyone thought he had come to clean house.
Then Ling Zhao sang from its sheath with a clear ring.
No one had expected that Zhuo Yu, such a cold-hearted, emotionless Sword Lord, would actually take the side of his villainous dao companion. He single-handedly fought against the other grandmasters and brought Feng Xian Yu back to Qingdu Mountain, imprisoning him in his cave dwelling.