Chapter 33#
The Luoyue disciples and Zhaoshui cultivators who followed closely stood far away, not daring to take a step closer.
Qin Wei’s face twitched violently, and his eyes immediately turned red. His lips trembled, unable to speak. He dragged his steps forward and fell before the shattered child’s clothes, his trembling hands picking up a piece of the spiritual cloth.
He suddenly stood up and rushed out with his sword.
An Wuxue held him back: “Qin Wei!!!”
Qin Wei tried to break free: “Ah Xue, let me go!”
An Wuxue held him back firmly: “You don’t even know if those monsters are dead or where they’ve gone if they aren’t. The battle has just ended, the barrier is surrounded by turbid energy, and who knows how many Tribulation-stage great demons are lurking outside Zhaoshui City! What are you going for? To die for no reason?”
Whether from anger or pain, his hands holding Qin Wei were also shaking.
Lou Shuiming only staggered forward and hugged Song Wu from behind.
He covered his junior sister’s eyes and said in a low voice: “Don’t look. Junior Sister, Ah Wu, don’t look…”
That was the first time An Wuxue had seen such an expression on Lou Shuiming’s face.
Lord Lou had never retreated half a step while fighting demons and monsters. Walking through the long streets piled with white bones with his sword, his eyes could still be like warm water, and his movements like a crane’s cry.
But he held his junior sister, lowering his head, not daring to look in front of him.
That night, every household in Zhaoshui City hung white cloth before their doors, and the City Lord’s Mansion was deathly silent.
Qin Wei drank until he was dead drunk, and An Wuxue practiced his sword in the courtyard all night.
When dawn broke, he took out a voice transmission talisman and hesitated for a long time.
He felt an indescribable suffocating feeling in his heart.
But Lou Shuiming was sad, Song Wu was sad, Qin Wei was sad, the cultivators of Zhaoshui City who had lost their loved ones were sad, and the displaced mortals were also sad.
If everyone in this world stopped at being sad, who would stop the grief?
He originally wanted to briefly describe the events of the day in the transmission and speak of his own feelings.
But in the end, he only left one sentence in the talisman.
He asked, “Is Junior Brother well?”
The Heavens and Seas Talisman carried these mere four words far away, toward Luoyue in the distant south.
Two days later, the Heavens and Seas Talisman carrying the aura of Xie Zhefeng’s soul floated before him.
His junior brother said, “I heard Zhaoshui was in danger yesterday.”
Along with his disappointment, An Wuxue actually let out a sigh of relief.
Why did he think of pouring his heart out to his junior brother?
Even if he did, the final response would only be this inquiry about the safety of Zhaoshui City.
He briefly described the events of Zhaoshui City in a few words, composed his mind, and continued to look down, pondering the current state of the sword array.
Another day passed, and they clarified what had happened on the day of the siege.
It turned out that the fellow disciples of the great demon Song Wu had slain years ago, in order to avenge that demonic cultivator, had used a diversion, pretending to send people to destroy the Zhaoshui Sword while actually aiming for Lou Wushang all along.
Demonic and immortal cultivators had fought for many years, and normally no one would care about an eight-year-old child. But in that battle, through calculated intent against unsuspecting targets, what they wanted was to take revenge on Lou Shuiming and Song Wu in this way.
The demonic cultivators who started the trouble were dead. The debt seemed to be settled, but it was only settled.
Afterward, Zhaoshui City reshaped the barrier and buried the bones of the dead in the sword mound—Lou Wushang’s bones and those clothes were also placed in the sword mound beneath the giant sword.
Lou Shuiming secluded himself for a few days before returning to being that meticulously gentle and respectful Lord Lou.
He understood better than anyone that he had lost Lou Wushang, but among the millions of cultivators and mortals in Zhaoshui City, who hadn’t lost something?
He had been traveling everywhere to seal demons and dispel turbid energy since the beginning of the immortal disaster, seeing too much injustice and too many unforgettable things in the world. He could pick them up and he could put them down.
But Song Wu could not.
Song Wu did not come out of her room for a long time. When An Wuxue saw her again, she spoke much less, and the vibrant and flamboyant aura from their first meeting was barely discernible.
Her Dao heart seemed to have developed a crack, and her cultivation level stopped at the mid-stage of the Tribulation.
Her life had been too smooth; that was the first loss of her life.
But that first loss had taken away too much.
An Wuxue and Qin Wei never mentioned Lou Wushang’s name again.
The sword array was nearing completion.
Zhaoshui City had been shrouded by the barrier for an unknown number of years, and the array was finally about to be dropped.
Once there was enough spiritual energy in the sword mound, they could begin drawing the array patterns, dropping the array eyes, and engraving this sword into heaven and earth.
In the final year, Song Wu suddenly became pregnant.
Cultivators have long lifespans, yet their offspring are not plentiful. Even combining all the sects, including those disciples recruited from the mundane world, not many children can be found. Therefore, when Lou Wushang was born, each of them treated him like a precious treasure.
How many years had it been now?
This child was not a gift from heaven but was brought about by Song Wu using a secret technique.
When An Wuxue learned the news, he said bluntly, “Shuiming, you cannot keep this child.”
Lou Shuiming remained silent.
Qin Wei gently pushed him from the side and said in a low voice, “Ah Xue, the Lady of Zhaoshui thinks of Wushang every day. If there is another child…”
“Birth, aging, illness, and death are the laws of the Heavenly Dao; all living beings in the world cannot escape this path,” he lowered his eyes, knowing his words were solemn but having to speak them. “Secret techniques are, after all, secret techniques. Continuing like this, at best it will be a dream that comes to nothing, and at worst it will lead to eternal damnation.”
Lou Shuiming hesitated for a long time before saying, “I have also tried to persuade her. But Chief, it was I who insisted on protecting her in the beginning, and it was also I who had to let her fight with me when the barrier broke that day. Junior Sister wanted to look for Wushang, but I made all the Tribulation immortal cultivators guard the Zhaoshui Sword to the death, forbidden to leave. I clearly promised to protect her and Wushang for a lifetime…”
He glanced in the direction of the giant Zhaoshui Sword and said as if to himself, “With what can I stop her?”
An Wuxue was speechless.
After Lou Shuiming left, Qin Wei said to him, “Since you know about Wushang’s matter, the Lady of Zhaoshui only has a bit of a selfish motive. Just turn a blind eye.”
“Ah Xue, when Shuiming brought his wife to Zhaoshui, you advised them to go and gain experience when you first met them. Now it’s just a child… why are you always so calm and indifferent?”
Calm and indifferent?
He wanted to say that wasn’t the case. On the night Lou Wushang died young, he practiced his sword in the courtyard, hacking until the plants and trees were withered and countless sword marks were left on the stone table.
It seemed this wasn’t the first time he had faced such questioning.
Having said words others wouldn’t say and done things without sentiment, cultivators who didn’t know him thought he was arbitrary, and friends who knew him also said he was calm and indifferent.
He opened his mouth but didn’t know how to say it or what to say.
In the end, he could say nothing.
Until the final step of the array.
They drew upon the power of the spiritual veins from all directions. Qin Wei was not good at arrays and led all the cultivators of Zhaoshui City to guard its four directions. An Wuxue and Lou Shuiming were responsible for injecting a large amount of spiritual power into the array patterns already drawn.
The giant sword hummed, showing signs of reaching between heaven and earth.
The Ten Thousand Sword Array was not yet completely connected, but the turbid energy near the East Cang Sea already showed signs of receding.
Those several months were the most chaotic Zhaoshui City had seen in hundreds of years.
Yet Lou Shuiming showed his first smile since Lou Wushang’s death.
He even brought Song Wu, who hadn’t been out for a long time, to the Zhaoshui Sword, pointing at the several array hearts that were about to be completed, and said, “Junior Sister, the Zhaoshui Sword Array is almost finished. Once the Zhaoshui Sword replaces the Heavenly Pillar and the Four Seas Ten Thousand Sword Array is finally established, we… will see a different world.”
Song Wu did not speak but nodded gently.
Three days later, Lou Shuiming and Song Wu’s second child was born.
That was also a boy, and from birth, his features could be seen to be almost the same as Lou Wushang’s in his infancy.
But Song Wu held the child with a vacant expression, showing no joy at all.
Song Wu’s Dao heart was unstable, and she had conceived through a secret technique, acting against heaven. This child was actually born with dead meridians.
One with dead meridians has blocked channels, stagnant blood and bone, and no detectable breath.
Even before the various immortals fell, a fetus born with dead meridians could only survive if, in the first few days after birth, it received help from an eternal immortal who injected immortal spiritual power to clear the meridians.
But there were no more eternal immortals in this world.
In just a few days, they could not find someone with such overwhelming spiritual power to save this child.
Lou Shuiming remained silent for a long time before finally gritting his teeth and stepping forward to take the child away.
He said, “Junior Sister, the sword array is almost complete. I… will take him to the sword mound.”
In the sword mound were buried millions of masterless spiritual swords and bones, as well as Lou Wushang.
But Song Wu, holding the child who could neither cry nor move, pushed him away and took several steps back, saying sharply, “He’s still alive!! I can find a way!”
Lou Shuiming stepped forward again, only to see Song Wu pointing her sword at him, her spiritual power radiating outward, not letting him get near at all.
Lou Shuiming could not truly fight her to the death.
The Zhaoshui Sword Array was waiting for him. He could not stay in a stalemate here, so he said to Song Wu, “Fine, wait for me to come back, and we will find a way together.”
He actually knew there was no way.
But he also knew that in Song Wu’s life, before losing her first child, everything had come too easily to her, and she had never lost anything.
She always felt that there was nothing in this world that couldn’t be kept or obtained.
He couldn’t persuade her, and he had no more time to try.
He hurried to the Zhaoshui Sword, mentioning not a word about the second son, and set the array with An Wuxue.
The sword array finally reached its last step. The monsters and demons outside the barrier were causing increasingly more trouble. Qin Wei was unable to get away, and the Luoyue disciples and Zhaoshui cultivators could not spare a moment either, guarding the barrier without a second’s slack.
In the array eye, there were only An Wuxue and Lou Shuiming.
They were supposed to drop the final array patterns together.
But at that very last moment—
The Zhaoshui Sword shuddered, spiritual energy within the array rampaged, and several array hearts all lost control.
An Wuxue was shaken until his internal organs were churning. He spat out a mouthful of blood, and his expression changed abruptly: “What’s happening? The spiritual power is insufficient; the array cannot be dropped!?”
But this spiritual power was what they had specifically spent months storing within the sword array. Why would it…?
Lou Shuiming’s pupils shook even more, as if talking to himself: “It’s me… the spiritual power I injected has been cut off in one place…”
But the array only recognized the aura of the two of them; who could have moved such a large amount of spiritual power right under their noses?
At this moment, within the sword array, a thick surge of turbid energy churned in all directions and soared into the sky.
The two looked at each other and immediately rose on their swords, heading straight for the source of the turbid energy.
When they arrived, An Wuxue had already summoned Chunhua and was about to use a full-strength strike—no matter who it was, anyone causing chaos in Zhaoshui at this moment could not be spared.
But after he saw that red-robed figure clearly, the spiritual power at his fingertips stalled, and he could only come to a sudden stop.
Lou Shuiming looked ahead in disbelief: “Junior Sister…”
There stood Song Wu, holding the child with an indifferent expression, her red robes rustling in the fierce wind.
Turbid energy surrounded her, and the pressure of the Tribulation stage condensed from all sides. She had actually practiced with turbid energy and reached the peak of the Tribulation stage, half a step into the immortal realm.
At her feet, the spiritual pouch Lou Shuiming had made by hand was destroyed, lying in tatters on the ground—she had taken advantage of her status as Lou Shuiming’s Dao companion and used that spiritual pouch to disguise her aura as Lou Shuiming’s, tricking the great array and tampering with it.
Lou Shuiming walked toward her step by dazed step, his voice trembling: “Junior Sister, are you crazy?”
Song Wu looked up at him and said calmly, “I found a way.”
“Senior Brother, look,” she slightly revealed the infant in her arms and suddenly smiled. “His dead meridians are cleared. Although he hasn’t woken up yet, with slow nurturing and guiding spiritual power for him, in a few hundred years, he will be able to open his eyes and grow up normally, just like Wushang was back then.”
Lou Shuiming shook his head violently and scolded loudly, “You practiced with turbid energy and entered demonhood to reach the peak of the Tribulation stage, and then used the spiritual power from the Zhaoshui Sword Array to clear his dead meridians!”
“What of it?”
“That was the spiritual power of the Zhaoshui Sword Array!! Zhaoshui has worked meticulously for a full ten years for this array!!”
He was usually gentle and had never spoken aggressively. For the first and only time in his life, he spoke to someone this way, and it was to his own wife.
Song Wu gave a cold laugh.
“Zhaoshui Sword Array. Zhaoshui. Sword. Array…”
“On the day Wushang had his accident, you also told me this was the Zhaoshui Sword and wouldn’t let me go. When this child was born, you also told me the Zhaoshui Sword Array was almost finished and you couldn’t stay, and you even wanted to bury him with Wushang in the sword mound.”
“When you brought me to Zhaoshui City, why didn’t you tell me these things?”
“Lou Shuiming, everyone says you are an upright gentleman, gentle and kind as jade. I used to think so too… but to me, are you being kind or cruel?”
“In your heart, is there only ever Zhaoshui City, only ever this sword, and only ever this array!?”
Lou Shuiming’s whole body stiffened, and he was unable to speak.
Right at this moment—
Spiritual power surged around them. An Wuxue held Chunhua, spiritual energy boiling around him, as he manipulated the array’s sword shadows, driving countless of them to attack Song Wu!
Song Wu had been obsessed for too long and had developed a heart-demon. Her reason was completely gone now. Caught off guard by An Wuxue’s full-strength strike, she was pushed back violently, and the child flew from her hands.
Lou Shuiming acted decisively, using spiritual power to catch the child and send him to a nearby area protected by a barrier. He drew his sword and attacked together with An Wuxue from front and back.
The sword array shuddered incessantly.
Outside Zhaoshui City, the barrier was also trembling violently—Qin Wei was fighting a death match with the great demons outside the city.
Song Wu had just dodged their combined attack. Looking at the red-robed figure surrounded by turbid energy, Lou Shuiming’s eyes were bloodshot, but his gaze suddenly became resolute.
Drawing on his understanding of Song Wu, he forced his junior sister toward an entrance to the sword mound.
An Wuxue understood his plan and opened the sword mound without hesitation.
Spiritual energy around them surged!
Song Wu seemed to be saying: “Lou Shuiming!”
Lou Shuiming gave her one last, lingering look.
With a “boom,” the sword mound closed.
Lou Shuiming seemed to suddenly lose all his strength, his body going limp as he knelt before the closed entrance.
By combining their efforts and using the power of the sword array, they had sealed Song Wu inside the sword mound.
But the Zhaoshui Sword was still trembling.
The child within the barrier remained quietly with his eyes closed.
The spiritual power missing from the sword array had been used by Song Wu to clear the infant’s dead meridians and could not be taken back.
An Wuxue looked at the despondent Lou Shuiming, saw that the barrier covering the sky was broken, and heard the constant sound of the wind around him.
If they were to fail at the final step…
It wouldn’t just be ten years of work in Zhaoshui City, but also the irreparable Heavenly Pillar and the constantly spreading turbid energy… the array wouldn’t hold for long. Then the Zhaoshui Sword would collapse, Song Wu would emerge from the sword mound, and join forces with the great demons outside Zhaoshui City…
In a split second, he thought of many, many things.
He thought of the only path.
An immortal cultivator at the peak of the Tribulation stage sacrificing their own pure spiritual power to the array could fill this gap.
Holding the hilt of Chunhua, he thought about how his junior brother had not yet replied to his last voice transmission.
What a pity.
With this sacrifice to the array, he would likely never—
“Chief.”
Lou Shuiming suddenly stood up, walked slowly to the barrier protecting the infant, and took out a jade plaque.
Engraved on the jade plaque were the words “Song Buwang.”
He had already chosen a name for the child and prepared his life plaque.
He placed the jade plaque on the infant and then walked in front of An Wuxue.
Amidst the flying sand and rolling stones, An Wuxue saw Lou Shuiming suddenly kneel before him.
“Shuiming!”
“I have known the Chief for a hundred years. What the Chief is thinking and what I am thinking, we can both guess a bit about each other.”
With red eyes, he smiled.
“I was wrong. You were right. I was wrong from the day I brought her to Zhaoshui.”
“If I hoped for her life to be smooth, I shouldn’t have brought her into this. If I hoped for her to be inseparable from me, I should have let go and faced it together with her. I wanted everything, and so I did everything wrong.”
“I once thought I only needed her to be a carefree young girl with me, and that one day the immortal disaster would end and Zhaoshui City would have songs and dances in peace. It was my pipe dream. In this world, no one can completely protect another for a lifetime.”
He gave Song Wu too much beauty, yet couldn’t give her everything she wanted.
In the end, he harmed both himself and others, failing to protect Song Wu and also harming Zhaoshui.
He was wrong from the very beginning.
“Chief, I don’t want to see piles of white bones anymore. Only the first sword of the Four Seas Ten Thousand Sword Array has been dropped; the two realms still need the Chief. I sowed the cause, so it is I who should swallow the fruit.”
“But I have one more selfish, ungracious request—”
“I know.”
An Wuxue interrupted him.
“There is no Great Demon beneath the Zhaoshui Sword. The Lady of Zhaoshui fought to the death against demonic cultivators and fell. The child has a congenital deficiency, so he was taken back to Luoyue to be raised.”
Lou Shuiming listened quietly to An Wuxue’s words, put down his natal sword, looked up, and smiled at An Wuxue.
Under An Wuxue’s gaze, he gave a heavy kowtow.
He stood up again with his spiritual sword and slowly drew it from its scabbard.
He said, “Please, Chief, draw the final array pattern.”
In the distance, sword light flashed as someone arrived on a sword.
Qin Wei’s puzzled voice was heard: “What’s happening with the sword array? I feel like the spiritual power is insufficient—”
His voice stopped abruptly.
An Wuxue didn’t look back.
He couldn’t see Qin Wei’s expression at that moment, nor did he know what the Luoyue disciples and Zhaoshui cultivators were thinking.
He injected spiritual power into Chunhua, the sword edge shaking, connecting with the great array.
Lou Shuiming moved his sword, the edge cutting across his neck.
Blood splashed out, and the spiritual power of a peak Tribulation-stage cultivator was injected into the array.
The Zhaoshui Sword emitted a sword hum that resounded through heaven and earth.
The wind suddenly stopped, and the faint sound of the tides of the East Cang Sea ceased.
The giant sword broke through the dark clouds, and sunlight poured down.
The array was complete.
He forever suppressed his legal wife here.