Chapter 142#
“Win…?” An Wuxue’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
He reached out, brushing away the stray hairs on Xie Zhefeng’s forehead, and gently straightened his Junior Brother’s disarrayed clothes and crown from the battle.
Xie Zhefeng gazed at him with red eyes.
He could not hear the clamor in his Junior Brother’s soul or sea of consciousness, nor did he know exactly what the demon bone was doing inside his Junior Brother’s body.
But he knew that Xie Zhefeng must be in a lot of pain right now.
He blinked rapidly, suppressing the soreness in his eyes, and looked back at Jiang Qing. “What is your definition of ‘winning,’ Fellow Daoist Jiang? I personally feel that the fact that you could endure for thousands of years and step out from the bottom of the deep sea meant you had already won. But on the day the Immortal Disaster began, you lost completely.”
Jiang Qing’s expression twisted—he understood the underlying meaning in An Wuxue’s words.
His eyes narrowed, his expression complex, and he once again looked toward the direction of Beiming.
“You think I shouldn’t have brought out the secret method of the Turbid Immortals?”
He was full of disdain.
“Haven’t we both seen it? The world is cold and indifferent. When I was the sword in his hand, the Beiming immortal sects always said the Young Master of the Qu Clan had a bright path and limitless prospects. When I was sealed by him at the bottom of the Underworld Sea, the mortal world sang that warning to the world, sighing over a genius abandoning his path—but what about me? Who ever spoke a single word of injustice for me?”
An Wuxue’s eyes shifted, his lips moved slightly, and finally, he remained silent.
When he saw the youth and the sword forming a contract in Jiang Qing’s memories, he had also felt very wistful.
If Qu Wendao had not broken the sword, there might not have been an Immortal Venerable Nan He in this world, but there would have been a beautiful legend in Beiming’s history that would have been sung for thousands of years.
The Beiming guest he knew, that Fetal Spirit Jiang Qing who had only been in the world for a few hundred years, had always been a good person who followed advice with kindness and was clear-headed and tranquil toward all living beings.
But that Jiang Qing died in the thousands of years of being washed by turbid energy at the bottom of the sea.
The one he knew was merely a phantom vanishing in the past.
Jiang Qing stared fixedly at him. “When your soul dissipated and your golden body and jade bone were shattered, the people of the world only said Immortal Venerable Chuhan was righteous for executing his kin, and they were grateful for the Immortal Venerable’s benevolence. But does anyone remember that the Four Seas Ten Thousand Sword Array took decades, even a hundred years? How much bitterness of the Head Disciple is buried beneath the sound of those swords?”
“You pity the innocent people of the world—are they innocent!?”
He mocked, “You held onto your original heart and didn’t change your path, and what did you get?”
An Wuxue did not say a word from beginning to end.
It wasn’t until Jiang Qing interrogated him that he said without hesitation, “Not changing my original heart is already what I have gained.”
Jiang Qing sneered. “Fine, so what? An Wuxue, we will eventually become the same kind of person.”
Today, this day, this moment—he had planned for too long.
Rong Ji was awake. Whether she lived or died, both would be the outcome Jiang Qing wanted to see.
If she died, Xie Zhefeng would become a Turbid Immortal, the world would be overturned, and everything An Wuxue had insisted on from beginning to end would become a joke.
If she lived, demons would throw the world into chaos.
If An Wuxue wanted to break this dilemma, his only choice was to surpass Xie Zhefeng, elevate his own cultivation, cultivate turbidity to ascend, and reappear the secret method of the Turbid Immortals in the world.
If the secret method reappeared, Jiang Qing could also easily return to the realm of a Turbid Immortal.
He and An Wuxue had clashed several times in the dark, and in the end… they would still reach the same destination by different routes.
“—These paths I prepared for you, have you made your choice?”
The barriers on all sides began to shatter again.
Xie Zhefeng’s immortal power had been constantly entangling with Rong Ji in the wind and snow.
As the barrier broke, Rong Ji’s mournful song drifted over, mixed from time to time with the Snow Demon’s crazed laughter.
She was no longer even considered a demon.
The Chuhan sword hummed, emitting sword intent.
In an instant, Xie Zhefeng set down the barrier again, blocking the overwhelming wind and snow and fending off Rong Ji’s demonic power.
Before the Guixu Sea, the snow and fog beside Langfeng City grew heavier. The Langfeng Sword was seized by turbid energy and drawn into the dark clouds, its shadow no longer visible from afar.
The wind and snow of heaven and earth did not stop; the chaos was endless.
The immortal cultivators of the four seas were all protecting the common people under the heavy snow, but human strength has its limits, and spiritual energy has its end.
Today was not thousands of years ago when the four pillars of heaven jointly guarded the Heavenly Dao and the various Longevity Immortals protected the common people.
Rong Ji, combining the power of the Guixu Sea demons and the Langfeng Sword, could fight against an Immortal!
Once she stepped out of the Guixu Sea, it would not be as simple as snow lotuses being destroyed or floating ice being shattered.
Xie Zhefeng once again formed a hand seal, and the Chuhan sword flew into the high-altitude wind and snow, tangling with the figure of the white-clad woman who appeared and disappeared.
But if Rong Ji were harmed, the demon bone in Xie Zhefeng’s body would become even stronger!
Chuhan did not dare to truly wound Rong Ji in the slightest. Being severely constrained, the interception was exceptionally difficult.
At this time, Pei Qian finally recovered a bit of spiritual power and attacked Jiang Qing without hesitation!
Although his cultivation was not as high as this incarnation of Jiang Qing, every time he struck, he would also throw out array talismans, being extremely flashy and extravagant. This disorganized approach actually proved effective.
For a moment, Jiang Qing was truly hindered by him.
An Wuxue looked toward Qu Jizhi.
Spiritual power surged around Qu Jizhi, array patterns faintly emerged, and his hands were still rapidly forming seals!
He met An Wuxue’s gaze and nodded to him almost imperceptibly.
Only then did An Wuxue look back at Xie Zhefeng.
The person before him already showed the violent intent of a demon, but his gaze remained unchanged as he said in a low and gentle voice, “Junior Brother, you—”
“I will go and kill the Snow Demon.”
Xie Zhefeng cut him off quickly.
An Wuxue was stunned, his voice slightly raspy as he hurriedly shook his head. “You will become a complete demon.”
He didn’t want that.
He didn’t want to see that.
His Junior Brother was born with a demon bone, yet as a practitioner of the Path of Floating Life, he walked the thorn-covered Path of Ruthlessness. He divided his soul to cut himself, immersed himself in the waters of the Yellow Springs, saw the Soul-Nourishing Tree, and shattered his soul for eight hundred years—all of which made him the young Immortal Venerable before whom all living beings now bowed.
Having struggled against the current to reach this point, was he eventually unable to escape the karmic hindrance of his own blood and bones?
No…
It couldn’t be like this!!
“My Junior Brother would not be willing to become a demon,” he said. “The Immortal Venerable Chuhan cannot be a demon.”
“Immortal Venerable Chuhan will not be a demon—because you can easily kill me before I fall into demonhood.” Xie Zhefeng gave him a small smile.
With this smile, the ice and snow melted, and the wind and rain cleared.
He was saying the most cruel words to himself, yet everything he gave to An Wuxue was tenderness.
These words, Xie Zhefeng had already thought of the moment he realized he couldn’t kill Rong Ji.
“I don’t care if I am a Sword Venerable or a Snow Demon in the eyes of the world. Senior Brother is still alive, and there are still infinite possibilities in this long life. I have also shared life and death with Senior Brother and shared white hair together. To me, this is more joyful than standing in this supreme position for a thousand years.”
As Xie Zhefeng spoke, the Life and Death Incantation’s yang seal stored in An Wuxue’s sea of consciousness was triggered by the yin seal, vibrating slightly.
He was telling him to use this curse to kill him.
An Wuxue shook his head incessantly.
He could never agree to this.
Xie Zhefeng’s voice remained steady through the gale. “I will kill the Snow Demon. At the moment the demon bone becomes complete, I don’t know what will happen. Perhaps the inner demon will completely occupy my divine sense, perhaps I won’t be the current me, but I will definitely be even stronger than I am now. We can gamble—gamble that at that moment, I can immediately find Jiang Qing’s true body and kill him. And then…”
And then, An Wuxue could kill Xie Zhefeng without any effort.
In this way, the Snow Demon would die, Jiang Qing would die, the demon would not be born, and the heavy snow would stop.
There would be no more Immortals in the world, but there would also be no more demons.
The chaos would end.
An Wuxue would not have to become a demon.
He would still be that Head Disciple of Luoyue Peak who had returned from the dead, cleared his name, and was as pure as the clear moon and breeze.
Xie Zhefeng was suppressing the demon bone with his sword bone; his meridians and bones were in pain.
But his heart hurt more.
He did not fear life or death; he had even been like a walking corpse a thousand years ago.
It’s just that… he had finally been able to be with his Senior Brother, yet they hadn’t been able to watch a few days of sunrises and sunsets together.
He also wouldn’t be able to protect his Senior Brother anymore.
But after his death, the disaster would end, everything would settle, and no one in the two worlds would be a match for An Wuxue. Senior Brother should… also not need him to protect him.
This was the best ending Xie Zhefeng could achieve.
But An Wuxue was still shaking his head.
Xie Zhefeng didn’t want to see his Senior Brother like this.
He took a deep breath, suppressing the demonic obstacle in his heart, stepped forward, and gently kissed away the tear tracks on An Wuxue’s cheek.
“I entrusted my life and death to Senior Brother, isn’t it precisely to guard against this moment? When we rushed to Langfeng, I had this premonition, and after seeing my mother, I am certain—this is all destined.”
He said.
“Senior Brother, I just tried to seal my mother, but she is insane. As soon as she sensed my intention to seal her, she wanted to self-destruct. I couldn’t hold her back. I could only retreat step by step. Having retreated to this point, I can retreat no further.”
Langfeng City was not far away. If they retreated further, what would happen to the creatures of the four directions?
“Rong Ji will die sooner or later, and the demon bone will return to completeness sooner or later. If I hadn’t become an Immortal, we could have forcibly destroyed my bone structure, but I have become an Immortal, and the demon bone has also become an odd sort of immortal bone; ordinary methods cannot destroy it.
“Regardless of whether Jiang Qing is here, regardless of whether it’s today, this is my destined demonic hindrance.”
He raised his eyes, looking toward Rong Ji in the snowy sky, who was fighting with the Chuhan sword.
“Perhaps I was destined to have this day.”
“My mother was right.”
“I was always meant to be… a born demon.”
An Wuxue listened quietly until he finished.
He gritted his teeth, wanting to tell Xie Zhefeng to stop talking many times, but he didn’t want to show Xie Zhefeng a cold face at such a moment.
Pei Qian gradually became unable to hold on and retreated to An Wuxue’s side.
Jiang Qing approached with his sword.
“I didn’t expect you to have this backup move. But so what?”
He had heard what Xie Zhefeng said just now and gave a sneer. “Little Immortal Venerable, you don’t have time to find my true body now. You want to lock onto my soul and kill me at the moment the demon bone merges and your strength greatly increases? It’s useless. You’ve been guessing why I went to such lengths to let puppets proliferate in the two worlds—why don’t I tell you the answer.”
He stopped ten feet in front of An Wuxue and Xie Zhefeng, his hands hanging down, his posture with the sword casual, as if completely unafraid that Xie Zhefeng would suddenly strike.
“Because I am of the Fetal Spirit tribe. My tribe is indestructible, and it can destroy anything. My body can bear external objects, and all things can bear my soul. Every puppet mark of the type spread through the two worlds can be used by me.”
“You, you you—” Pei Qian pointed at him. “You mean all the ownerless puppets in the two worlds right now can be your incarnations? You’re bluffing us!”
An Wuxue said deeply, “He’s not wrong. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have the confidence to stand before us alone.”
For so many years, in order not to expose himself, Jiang Qing never cultivated his own faction, yet he was able to have incarnations that were not stained with turbid energy, perfectly hiding behind his schemes with his traces everywhere. He likely relied on the nature of the Fetal Spirit tribe.
“Yes,” Jiang Qing nodded seriously. “My soul can hide into any puppet across the two worlds at any time. Does the Little Immortal Venerable have the confidence to find the location of my soul and eliminate me in an instant? If you don’t, I’m sorry, you don’t even have a chance to gamble.”
He squinted his eyes and said unhurriedly.
“Why don’t we still follow those paths I mentioned. The Immortal Venerable becomes a demon, or the Head Disciple cultivates turbidity, let me see the secret method of the Turbid Immortals reappear in the world and the world fall into chaos—Hahahahahahaha!!!”
An Wuxue didn’t give Jiang Qing even a single glance.
In such a tense situation, his eyebrows instead curved slightly as he gave his Junior Brother a small smile.
“Junior Brother wants me to kill you because you want to leave me alone to struggle with Jiang Qing?”
Xie Zhefeng’s consciousness was muddled, and he only shook his head.
“All things in the world have a thread of life; there is never a destiny that cannot be escaped. Karma is not unchangeable; instead, the three thousand Great Daos exist to find my path.”
“Senior Brother…”
Xie Zhefeng’s gaze grew darker and darker, and the snow lotus sword mark on his forehead was now entirely black.
Chuhan fought with Rong Ji, and the barrier had broken time and time again. The demonic power was constantly approaching Langfeng City.
Jiang Qing’s laughter stopped abruptly, and he raised an eyebrow. “What, you have other ideas? Let’s hear them.”
“Master cast the Ruthless Curse and sealed the demon bone back then before passing the Immortal Venerable position to Junior Brother. He knew everything, so he might not have failed to calculate today. I don’t believe the demon bone is unsolvable.”
When Jiang Qing heard An Wuxue mention Nan He, his cheek twitched, and his eyes were full of gloom.
“…He might have truly known, but he has been dead for a thousand years.”
An Wuxue only said to Xie Zhefeng, “When Junior Brother killed all the demons in the world back then, I was already dead; we were unable to stand side by side until the end. Now, are you willing to face this with me, listen to what I say, and let me choose our karma?”
Xie Zhefeng’s consciousness was fading, but he still nodded silently at once.
“Good. Before I return, Junior Brother must block Rong Ji.”
An Wuxue gave a light laugh, instantly suppressing the bitterness in his eyes.
Jiang Qing frowned. “Before you return? What do you mean?”
“Master has indeed been dead for a thousand years.”
“But this is Langfeng City.”
“The current me indeed cannot find Master, but the Master of a thousand years ago was in Langfeng City.”
Jiang Qing’s expression changed abruptly, suddenly realizing what he had overlooked, and he hurriedly looked toward Qu Jizhi.
At the same time, as soon as An Wuxue finished speaking, Qu Jizhi set down the final hand seal!
It turned out that while An Wuxue was confronting Jiang Qing and Pei Qian was drawing Jiang Qing’s attention, Qu Jizhi had been silently laying down exquisite array patterns to one side!!!
At this moment, the array was complete.
The array patterns on all sides silently connected, silver light flowing and piercing through the wind and snow, extending directly from the Guixu Sea to Langfeng City.
They were all exceptionally familiar with the fluctuations of this array’s patterns.
Jiang Qing gritted his teeth and said, “The Leaf-Watching Array!!”
This array could send the person within it into the past!
Qu Jizhi and Pei Qian were only at the late stage of Tribulation, which was not enough to be seen in front of the half-step ascension and Immortal stages. Jiang Qing had never taken the two of them seriously from the beginning.
He only considered An Wuxue as an opponent, not expecting that Qu Jizhi had long ago received An Wuxue’s hint and was pretending to be too injured to act while actually laying the array!
By the time he discovered it, it was too late.
The silver light flowed, and in an instant, it fell under the Leaf-Watching Array’s net in Langfeng Guixu, sending An Wuxue into the past!
Jiang Qing hesitated for a moment.
But only for a moment.
His expression steeled, and he simply chased into the array.
On the floating ice, only Xie Zhefeng, Qu Jizhi, and Pei Qian remained.
Qu Jizhi held his sword against the ground, his eyes tightly closed, using all his strength to maintain the operation of the Leaf-Watching Array.
Xie Zhefeng called back Chuhan. In the blink of an eye, his soul left his body, dividing his soul to suppress the inner demon.
He trembled all over, and a hint of pain flashed in his eyes.
But he didn’t make a sound.
Within a few breaths, his divine sense regained clarity.
Xie Zhefeng once again held Chuhan and, treading on the spiritual wind stirred by his immortal power, charged into the wind and snow!
Inside the Leaf-Watching Array, An Wuxue knew that Jiang Qing was chasing him.
But this time, the one who set the array was Qu Jizhi.
He held the token given by the array-setter and could travel through the array at will, much faster than Jiang Qing.
As soon as he entered the array, his thoughts flashed as he recalled back then, heading straight for the day Langfeng City fell over a thousand years ago!
At that time, the Snow Demon surrounded Langfeng, and demons roamed the deep alleys as if looking for something.
Until Nan He arrived, killed the Snow Demon tribe leader, and the Luoyue disciples drove the Snow Demon back to the vast sea.
Nan He took the young An Wuxue toward the City Lord’s Mansion.
When An Wuxue fell into this segment of time, he happened to see his former self passing Nan He and stepping forward to cover Xie Zhefeng’s eyes.
Nan He stood at the door, watching their younger selves.
He stopped behind Nan He.
Even in the past illusion, the world’s number one sword of old was peerless and proud.
The man wore a blue robe, his body like a crane or bamboo, his face like the bright moon.
The Qu Wendao of a thousand years ago was looking at the An Wuxue and Xie Zhefeng of a thousand years ago, and the An Wuxue of now was looking at the Qu Wendao of a thousand years ago.
An Wuxue had just stood still.
The man turned around to look at him.
“Master,” he called out.