Chapter 25#
The scattered crowd came to a halt, and the retreating cultivators turned back to shout: “Zhaoshui Sword! — It’s the Zhaoshui Sword!!”
The cloud boat was pushed away by the pressure of the Zhaoshui Sword. His dharma robes were tattered, torn by the surging spiritual energy, and a deep bloody gash was carved into his cheek by the residual light of the sword. Blood mingled with dust; he had never been in such a pathetic state.
But he struggled to get up, braving the pressure of the Zhaoshui Sword to move towards Yun Yao’s side.
The cultivators from the City Lord’s Mansion surrounded him, thinking he had been injured by a demonic cultivator.
Several Great Success stage cultivators grabbed him together: “Fellow Daoist Yun Zhou, your senior brother has fallen into demonhood!!”
Yun Zhou could not break free.
Yun Yao was pinned down ruthlessly by the light of the Zhaoshui Sword.
He seemed to be in great pain, his brows furrowed tightly.
But when he turned his head and saw Yun Zhou, he actually started to smile.
After an unknown amount of time, people from Luoyue Peak arrived—a Tribulation Transcendence stage demonic cultivator appearing in Zhaoshui City was something Luoyue Peak naturally could not ignore.
The leader happened to be Xuan Fang.
Xuan Fang’s face was grim. He efficiently retracted the Zhaoshui Sword light enveloping Yun Yao, and chains inscribed with demon-sealing runes climbed onto Yun Yao’s hands and feet.
“Take him to the Cangu Tower,” Xuan Fang said.
Yun Yao did not speak from beginning to end.
Yun Zhou was held by several Great Success stage cultivators. He reached out his hand, unable to touch Yun Yao, who was being taken away by the Luoyue Peak disciples.
“…Senior Brother.”
Yun Zhou was clearly opening his mouth, yet it was as if he suddenly lacked the strength to make a sound.
But An Wuxue heard this “Senior Brother.”
It wasn’t said by Yun Zhou.
It was the person beside him.
He turned his head and saw that Xie Zhefeng was not looking at the scenes in Yun Yao’s memory, but was still gazing in the direction of the Zhaoshui Sword.
The Zhaoshui Sword in Yun Yao’s memory was not clear, as blurred as a reflection in water, yet Xie Zhefeng watched with dim eyes.
That “Senior Brother” just now, and the way he was looking at the Zhaoshui Sword…
Is he thinking of me again?
An Wuxue’s heart was a piece of dead silence.
Longing—what meaning does this word have for “An Wuxue,” who died a thousand years ago?
And this longing came from Xie Zhefeng.
During his lifetime, he never received a single response from Xie Zhefeng. After a lifetime of striving, all he got in the end was his junior brother’s silhouette disappearing behind the wind and snow before he died.
And after death?
His junior brother chased his remnant soul to the Thorny River to mourn, had been searching for news related to him for hundreds of years, took care of Kun-kun, and even pursued the source of those few unpresentable talismans on him.
All of this, he had previously regarded as Xie Zhefeng’s self-deceiving “regret” born of the sudden realization of loneliness after being at the top for hundreds or thousands of years.
But he had just seen Su Xue’s face.
Xie Zhefeng kept a furnace who looked extremely similar to him by his side.
He had seen much human love and knew well that only a heart of love could make a person love the house and its crows to such an extent.
How novel.
Did his junior brother ever have feelings for him?
He would rather not have them.
He would rather have woken up to find that Xie Zhefeng had forgotten him, that the name of the Luoyue Peak Chief had been buried forever in the siege of a thousand years ago, and that he had nothing more to do with the past.
In the memory of Yun Yao’s remnant soul, the scenery around Zhaoshui City began to blur.
An Wuxue looked down as the blur spread to his feet and suddenly said, “Immortal Venerable.”
Xie Zhefeng then came back to his senses: “…Hmm?”
“You’ve mentioned ‘Senior Brother’ twice today.”
The man beside him seemed to realize what he was about to mention, and his brows furrowed slightly.
He just said numbly, “If I remember correctly, that former Chief of Luoyue Peak—Immortal Venerable’s only senior brother of the same sect—fell a thousand years ago, executed by Immortal Venerable’s own hand with the Chuhan Sword for the sake of justice.”
“If I were that senior brother of Immortal Venerable…” He turned his head and looked directly at Xie Zhefeng, his gaze devoid of joy or sorrow, “Perhaps I would prefer it if Immortal Venerable simply treated me as a sinner who strayed into the path of turbidity and became a demon, while Immortal Venerable continued to sit high on the lotus throne, ruling the two realms, being the unshakeable peak in the hearts of the world. Do not look back, do not regret. Otherwise…”
Otherwise, it makes his death look like a joke.
I haven’t even regretted it, what are you regretting?
So what if you regret?
Can I pull out the Chunhua Sword and stab it into the chest of the only immortal in this world?
He gave a low laugh and stopped looking at the person beside him.
Xie Zhefeng was momentarily dazed.
If it were someone else standing here, they probably wouldn’t even be able to finish these words.
But Su Xue was inherently very similar to An Wuxue’s previous life. As Xie Zhefeng listened in a daze, the pain in his eyes became more evident, and he even wanted to argue somewhat urgently: “I’m not—”
The blurred scenery of Zhaoshui City around them suddenly disappeared, and a blanket of pitch-black covered them.
Both of them paused.
The memory of Yun Yao’s remnant soul had not yet ended.
If Luoyue Peak brought back a demonic cultivator to the sect, there was only one place used to deal with a Tribulation Transcendence stage immortal cultivator who had entered demonhood…
An Wuxue’s whole body stiffened.
As expected.
The darkness faded, and the surroundings were still dim. All sides were walls covered in frost, with only a narrow window the width of a single person letting in a sliver of daylight.
Barriers fell layer upon layer, isolating all the prosperity of the human world.
Only a deathly silence of cold remained.
The top floor of the Cangu Tower.
Not even birds would land; it was a place with a slim chance of survival.
They were within Yun Yao’s memory and were not supposed to be able to touch any perceptions from the past.
But looking at Yun Yao, who hung head down and lifeless under layers of chains, he thought of the hundred days he had spent here back then.
A hundred days was just a blink of an eye for a cultivator—but those hundred days he was imprisoned in the Cangu Tower felt longer than a hundred years, wearing him down until he felt his flesh and blood had dissolved into the frost of the Cangu Tower.
He seemed to feel the cold of that year again, standing there stiffly and watching.
Xie Zhefeng had been looking at An Wuxue just now and immediately noticed something was wrong with him.
The man frowned: “What’s wrong with you?”
An Wuxue did not respond.
Xie Zhefeng said, “Hold the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit well, do not delay the important business.”
The man thought his wound was hurting, so he raised his hand to touch his injured left shoulder, his spiritual energy moving at his fingertips, about to cover it.
Just as the icy spiritual energy rose, An Wuxue truly shuddered from the cold and hurriedly stepped back a few paces.
“You…”
“I’m cold,” he said.
Xie Zhefeng was stunned.
Ahead, Yun Yao’s soul was growing weaker and weaker.
Disciples of Luoyue Peak who committed great crimes might not even be able to walk out, let alone a demonic cultivator carrying turbid energy?
His Tribulation Transcendence stage was forcibly pushed up at the moment he absorbed the turbid energy.
He couldn’t hold on for much longer.
Yun Yao hung motionless beneath the chains surrounded by runes, his head lowered, his breath as thin as a thread.
Tap…
Tap tap…
Long boots stepped on the perennial frost and snow on the ground.
A man in white robes walked slowly to Yun Yao.
Xie Zhefeng?
Why did Xie Zhefeng suddenly go over there—
An Wuxue turned his head, only to find that Xie Zhefeng was still standing beside him, showing no surprise at the appearance of another “Xie Zhefeng.”
He looked back again and saw that there was also a Xie Zhefeng in front of Yun Yao.
—That was the Xie Zhefeng from two hundred years ago!
Two hundred years ago… what did Immortal Venerable Chuhan come to the Cangu Tower for?
The Xie Zhefeng of that year stood still before Yun Yao.
The man asked in a low voice: “Are you cold?”
It was out of the blue.
In his daze, Yun Yao nodded.
“…How cold is it?”
Xie Zhefeng stood by the narrow window, looking at the daylight outside the barrier.
Yun Yao lowered his head and gave a laugh, his tone gentle: “Since Fellow Daoist is standing here… why ask me if it’s cold?”
“I…” Xie Zhefeng murmured, “I can no longer feel it.”
The eternal immortal is not bound by the mundane world and could no longer experience the icy cold of the Cangu Tower.
Yun Yao said nothing more.
Xie Zhefeng stood by the narrow window for a while and then left.
One of them kept looking elsewhere, and the other kept his head lowered with breath as thin as a thread; neither ever saw the other’s face.
Not long after, Yun Yao completely reached his limit.
He was born in Zhaoshui City and grew up in the Yunjian Sect. Since childhood, he had been the eldest and most steady among his peers, yet in the end, he carried a body of frost and turbid energy to sleep forever on the top floor of the Cangu Tower.
He died.
Another wave of pitch-black passed, and an unknown amount of time went by.
The perspective of Yun Yao’s memory actually lit up again.
—It was Yun Zhou.
Yun Zhou had actually fashioned a puppet body identical to how Yun Yao looked in life, found a remnant soul of Yun Yao, and placed the remnant soul inside the puppet.
For a demonic cultivator who died in the Cangu Tower, both their body and soul would gradually vanish.
Yun Zhou could only find the last remnant soul. Inside the puppet body, day after day, year after year, there was no movement at all.
Yun Yao’s remnant soul could vaguely perceive everything around him, but he only had the last bit of obsession left, muddled and confused; he could neither move nor speak.
“Senior Brother, I know I was wrong. I won’t bully you anymore. Can you smile at me again? You look very good when you smile.”
“…I didn’t return to the Yunjian Sect, nor did I take the Mirror Demon to Luoyue Peak. I’ve been looking for you. If you wake up, whatever you want me to do, I will do, okay?”
“The waves of the East Cang Sea are so big today—you used to often take me to the seaside when the waves were big, saying that I usually only focused on my cultivation and sword techniques and didn’t practice my footwork, and that sooner or later I would suffer for it. You wanted me to study my footwork in the waves. I always brushed you off. Today I won’t. Will you teach me?”
“I’ve flipped through so many ancient texts and asked so many people. They all say that when a person dies, they go out like a lamp, and a remnant soul is not a sign of life. I don’t believe them…”
“…”
Yun Zhou came to see Yun Yao every now and then, and every time he came, he always brought a large amount of heavenly treasures related to the soul.
But none of these were of any use.
After talking to himself for a long time, he gradually began to find it dull.
He started controlling the puppet’s body, imitating his senior brother’s temperament, and talking to himself.
“…Senior Brother, talk to me again, okay? I beg you, consider it me begging you…”
“I don’t want anything else…”
Several more springs and autumns passed.
This time, Yun Zhou’s steps were hurried, and his expression was full of anticipation.
He said to Yun Yao: “Senior Brother, I’ve found out. Luoyue Peak has a worldly treasure called the Soul-Nurturing Tree, which Immortal Venerable went to great lengths to find. Within the Soul-Nurturing Tree is the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit, which can perceive spirits and nourish souls.”
“As long as I can get such a treasure, your remnant soul can be restored to its original state.”
In the memory, the scene shifted.
Yun Yao’s puppet body waited for a while in Zhaoshui City, only to see Yun Zhou return with a person.
—It was Su Xue.
Su Xue himself seemed very quiet, obediently following behind Yun Zhou without saying anything.
An Wuxue couldn’t help but feel tense, worried that Xie Zhefeng would see the difference between the real Su Xue and himself.
Fortunately, Yun Zhou didn’t want outsiders to see the interaction between himself and “Yun Yao” either. After bringing Su Xue, he settled him in another room.
He said to Yun Yao: “Senior Brother, Immortal Venerable once personally went to a place where turbid energy was out of control, though I don’t know what he was investigating. By chance, I found out that Immortal Venerable was checking whether someone had been to that source of turbid energy. This mortal I’ve brought looks very much like the person Immortal Venerable cares about. As long as I take him to Luoyue Peak, I can naturally sneak in.”
Listening to this, An Wuxue immediately understood that Xie Zhefeng was investigating his tracks from his previous life.
Before he fell, he was tainted with thick turbid energy. He hadn’t had time to tell Xie Zhefeng how he got tainted before he died under the light of the Chuhan Sword.
Such thick turbid energy could not be found in ordinary places.
Xie Zhefeng is investigating how he fell into demonhood back then?
That really is a futile effort.
The place that caused him to fall into demonhood no longer exists.
Even if Immortal Venerable Chuhan searched for thousands of years, it would be impossible to make any progress.
In Yun Yao’s memory, Yun Zhou said again: “Back then, Master made you undergo punishment. It must have hurt a lot, right? I’ve vented your anger for you. I killed Master and the others, but don’t worry, I know you’ve always been fond of Junior Sister Yun Wan and the others, so I’ve hidden them away. I’ll sneak into Luoyue Peak and wait until they hear the news of the Yunjian Sect’s destruction. Then I can use my identity as a Yunjian Sect disciple to request Immortal Venerable to bring out the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit for a thorough investigation. When the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit leaves Luoyue, I’ll find a way to seize it.”
Afterward, Yun Zhou controlled Yun Yao’s body and, taking Su Xue with them, the three went up to Luoyue Peak together.
As for the Mirror Demon that was originally subdued by Yun Zhou, it remained at the Yunjian Sect to help him maintain the illusion.
At this point, the memory of Yun Yao’s remnant soul finally came to a complete end.
In An Wuxue’s hand, the golden light of the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit flickered and gradually dimmed.
He understood where Yun Yao’s obsession lay.
The surrounding scenery changed drastically.
He and Xie Zhefeng returned to the Yunjian Sect. Yun Yao’s body was before him, eyes still quietly closed.
In the next instant, Yun Zhou’s urgent voice came: “Give my senior brother back to me!!!”
While they had spent a hundred years in the blink of an eye within the remnant soul’s memories, only a moment had actually passed.
Yun Zhou gripped his spiritual sword tightly and attacked again, his mid-stage Tribulation Transcendence cultivation fully revealed.
The surrounding spiritual energy boiled, and a fierce wind tore through the ancient cypresses in all directions. Along with the exploding spiritual power, it headed straight for An Wuxue!
Xie Zhefeng suddenly came back to his senses. His gaze flickered slightly as he brought his fingers together, and spiritual energy condensed.
Chunhua was still in its scabbard. On a nearby ancient cypress, a slender twig moved against the wind, wrapped in frost. In the blink of an eye, it actually blocked Yun Zhou’s full-force strike with just a frosted twig!
Yun Zhou’s whole body shook: “You’re not at the early stage of Tribulation Transcendence—”
Before he could finish, the sword qi arrived.
In the whistling wind, Xie Zhefeng clearly wasn’t holding a sword, yet sword light seemed to be everywhere.
Xie Zhefeng had not brought the Chuhan Sword out of Luoyue Peak.
But An Wuxue stood to the side, feeling the icy spiritual energy surging everywhere. The bone-chilling cold from before his fall in his previous life seemed to spread from the bottom of his heart.
This person had once been like this, summoning sword light into his heart with a wave of his hand to execute him, a person who deserved his punishment.
How was he in Xie Zhefeng’s eyes back then any different from Yun Zhou now?
Yet this person, after reaching the perfection of the Heartless Path and ascending to immortality, and at this moment when he had been dead for a full thousand years, kept a furnace who looked exactly like him by his side.
His thoughts were involuntarily drawn here. He only felt that the sword light was dazzling, and the cold wind pressed down on him so hard he couldn’t catch his breath.
He hurriedly looked away.
Spiritual energy rippled out wave after wave.
The Mirror Demon’s true body completely disintegrated in the vibration, shattering everywhere.
An Wuxue looked elsewhere, feigning nervousness, while in reality, his heart was only filled with confusion.
Fighting the Mirror Demon took quite a while just now, and now dealing with Yun Zhou, he hadn’t landed a killing blow either.
Xie Zhefeng’s incarnation didn’t have high cultivation, but couldn’t Xie Zhefeng use his soul’s cultivation? Why did he neither imbue the Chunhua with spiritual energy to strike with the sword nor use his soul realm as an immortal to crush his opponent?
Before long, Yun Zhou’s voice was heard, filled with shock, anger, and panic: “You’re not an ordinary Tribulation Transcendence stage cultivator. Who exactly are you!?”
Xie Zhefeng said coldly: “The day I returned to the mountain, the protective array of Luoyue sent me an anomaly. The Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit’s thorough investigation of the peaks yielded no results, except for the Frost Sea, which was never checked—you were exposed long ago.”
These words could be considered revealing his identity.
Yun Zhou was incredulous: “Immortal Venerable!?”
He retreated a few steps, but saw that Yun Yao was still beside An Wuxue. Gritting his teeth, he said again: “No, even if you are the Immortal Venerable, you are not the ‘Immortal Venerable’…”
He saw that the strength of Xie Zhefeng’s incarnation had not reached the realm of an immortal. The tip of his sword cut his fingertip, and his natal essence blood condensed on the blade!
In an instant, Yun Zhou’s black hair turned gray, and even a few white hairs appeared.
He was using his lifespan as a curse to fight Xie Zhefeng with everything he had!
Xie Zhefeng’s expression remained unchanged as he asked him: “How did you find Yun Yao’s remnant soul, and how did you create a puppet identical to Yun Yao in life?”
Yun Zhou did not answer and attacked directly.
Sword qi condensed in Xie Zhefeng’s hand. With a wave of his hand, he effortlessly separated Yun Zhou and An Wuxue.
An Wuxue took advantage of their battle to communicate with Yun Yao’s remnant soul, which possessed only primal consciousness, using the power of the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit.
He was confirming the obsession of Yun Yao’s remnant soul.
When he turned back to look again, Yun Zhou had been knocked to the ground by Xie Zhefeng’s chilling spiritual energy. He leaned on his spiritual sword, his mouth full of blood, seemingly unable to stand.
Yet he still used all his strength. The veins on his hand gripping the sword hilt bulged, and he spat out several more mouthfuls of blood, trembling as he stood up.
His clothes were tattered, his body covered in gashes from sword light, and more than half of his hair was white.
The cultivation he had overextended using his essence blood completely dissipated. Yun Zhou’s face was as white as paper, as if he had aged in an instant.
He was destined for failure.
This appearance of crawling on the ground, unable to get up—where was there any trace of the youth dancing with a sword under the tree in Yun Yao’s memory?
“Give my senior brother back to me—”
He still said it.
An Wuxue held the tree spirit and said calmly: “So what if I give him back to you?”
His words seemed to have another meaning, and Xie Zhefeng, who was about to strike, paused slightly.
Yun Zhou was stunned.
An Wuxue lowered his eyes.
He stirred the spiritual energy of the tree spirit, and with the cooperation of Yun Yao’s remnant soul’s will, he effortlessly drew out Yun Yao’s thin remnant soul.
Under the shroud of the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit’s golden light, the remnant soul did not become more solid; instead, it gradually thinned.
It was actually on the verge of dissipating.
An Wuxue gave a mocking laugh.
“Do you understand now?” he asked Yun Zhou.
Yun Zhou was dazed, but Xie Zhefeng’s expression was the first to change drastically.
“A remnant soul is just a remnant soul. Only when a cultivator’s body dies and their soul is extinguished does a remnant soul remain. This is itself an omen of falling. How could there be any method of reviving a remnant soul by nourishing it with the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit?”
“The Soul-Nurturing Tree cannot bring the dead back to life at all,” he said. “Yun Zhou, even if you found the remnant soul, even if you snatched the Soul-Nurturing Tree Spirit, it would be a wasted effort.”
“Your senior brother is dead, completely and utterly dead two hundred years ago.”