Chapter 35#
Qin Wei’s mind was in turmoil, the spiritual energy cutting off the array heart fluctuated, and he was negligent for a moment.
Lou Shuiming had just stood up.
Song Wu’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and she burst into laughter.
She said nothing, only laughed.
From another array heart that had not been cut off, turbid energy surged out!
An Wuxue immediately came back to his senses, about to act.
But a cool wind suddenly blew from afar.
At the array heart where the turbid energy was churning, a solemn sword light descended from the heavens.
Between heaven and earth, frost spread.
An Wuxue shuddered from the cold.
He instinctively sensed that person had arrived and immediately withdrew all his extended divine sense.
The vibration of the Zhaoshui Sword Array suddenly stopped.
That sword light, together with Qin Wei’s spiritual energy, completely cut off the turbid energy of the two array hearts!!!
At the same time.
Song Wu seemed to be strangled by the throat, her laughter stopped abruptly, and she suddenly lost her strength, letting out a scream.
Another cold light.
This time, it was not a sword light without substance.
The Chuhan Sword broke through the air and came without any pause, crossing the center of Song Wu’s soul’s brow!
In an instant, all four directions of heaven and earth seemed frozen.
Song Wu’s expression went blank for a moment.
She seemed not to have expected this moment, and didn’t even have time to think about anything.
The surrounding turbid energy immediately became thin.
The red-robed figure stalled for a moment and then slumped down softly.
Lou Shuiming’s remnant soul’s expression flickered, and he stepped forward a few steps to catch her.
They seemed to look at each other.
But Song Wu’s soul was completely extinguished. Before Lou Shuiming’s remnant soul could touch her, her red robes drifted down, and her soul dispersed and vanished, as if following a gust of wind.
Lou Shuiming’s hands were empty.
She died just like that. To her death, she did not know that her child had not died, did not know that Song Buwang was currently within the sword array, right next to her.
Under the light of the Chuhan Sword, not a blade of grass grows, and all souls are extinguished.
The Chuhan Sword cut through the fierce wind with a “shush” and flew back to its origin.
The sword light in the Zhaoshui Sword Array gradually dimmed and was slowly stabilizing.
Xie Zhefeng descended from the air and raised his hand to catch the sword.
Qin Wei stood up dazed, sheathing his sword and staring intently at An Wuxue.
Lou Shuiming sat there with a wooden expression, kneeling, seemingly still looking at his empty hands.
Outside the barrier, Zhaoshui City was calm and peaceful.
Lou Shuiming’s remnant soul also began to thin out.
From the moment he used the power of his remnant soul to link the sword array and stabilize the barrier, it was destined that even this wisp of remnant soul would dissipate today.
He looked into the distance.
Sealed within the giant sword for over a thousand years, he had never seen Song Wu in the sword mound, nor had he witnessed the many Tianshui sacrifices.
A wind blew by, and he seemed to feel the moisture from the East Cang Sea on his face.
Behind Lou Shuiming, An Wuxue glanced at Xie Zhefeng.
This man still used the incarnation that had been injured by him, and his white sleeves were covered in bright red. The Chuhan Sword had been summoned from Luoyue Peak by Xie Zhefeng at some unknown time and was now quietly resting in its scabbard.
He didn’t know when Xie Zhefeng had arrived.
Nor did he know what Xie Zhefeng was thinking at this moment.
But he had something he wanted to do, and even with thousands of concerns, he did not hesitate.
Under the gazes of Xie Zhefeng and Qin Wei, he went before Lou Shuiming and slowly bent down.
He opened his spiritual pouch and took out something from it.
“Lord Lou, I entered the city a few days ago and heard the songs in the city singing about the past, and I was moved by the City Lord’s merit in establishing the sword array. This item was given to me by another on the night I entered the city; I shall offer it to you as a gift in return.”
It was the little rabbit flower lantern Yun Zhou had bought for him.
After waking up and first entering the human world, he was dazzled by the prosperity for the first time and couldn’t bear to see the fire go out, so he used spiritual energy to preserve the candle fire and stored it in his spiritual pouch.
Now as the flower lantern was handed to Lou Shuiming, without his spiritual energy protection, the candle fire suddenly flickered.
Lou Shuiming held this little rabbit flower lantern.
A remnant soul can only retain the most intense memories. His memory was incomplete, and he vaguely remembered the day of his marriage with Song Wu, when Zhaoshui City couldn’t even put together ten lanterns.
A thousand years seemed to be squeezed into this exquisite little rabbit flower lantern, burning before his eyes.
Lou Shuiming murmured, “Chief…”
“The flower lantern is a gift from me for the living beings of Zhaoshui, but—Lord Lou,” he said, “I am not the Chief you speak of.”
Lou Shuiming was startled.
His remnant soul was almost dissipated, and he seemed unable to think more.
He could only show a look of confusion.
An Wuxue lowered his eyes, looking at how his hands were held in an embrace yet held no one, and said, “I am just a mediocre person passing through here a thousand years later. The Chief you speak of fell a thousand years ago. So…”
He paused, hiding the dryness in his eyes, and gave a laugh.
“Forgive me, but I cannot accept your kowtow and what you just said on behalf of a person who is already dead.”
Lou Shuiming’s expression shook.
He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something.
But An Wuxue didn’t hear a sound.
The soul silhouette before him completely dissipated.
Without support, the flower lantern fell and rolled a few times with the wind.
The candle fire curled up onto the lantern, and the tongues of fire gradually enveloped the entire flower lantern, leaving only ashes to scatter in the wind.
A wisp of spiritual light quietly surged into An Wuxue’s body.
The Zhaoshui Sword returned to stability.
Qin Wei’s eyes had been red all along, and at this moment he finally couldn’t help but let them become wet. He held his sword in both hands and made a deep bow toward the place where Lou Shuiming and Song Wu’s souls had vanished.
The four-sided barrier faded, and it seemed many Luoyue disciples were approaching.
An Wuxue slowly came back to his senses from the memories of a thousand years ago, returning to being “Su Xue.”
He looked up at the sky, which had turned clear again, his expression wooden.
Song Buwang rushed over: “Master, there’s no problem in the southeast. You—”
He paused.
He only saw Xie Zhefeng in blood-soaked white robes holding the peerless Chuhan Sword, and An Wuxue, who was only at the Fasting stage, seemed to have rolled on the ground, his whole body dirty and seemingly injured, while his master was withdrawing his spiritual energy and rushing to An Wuxue’s side.
He didn’t see the red-robed figure that had vanished the moment before, nor did he see Lou Shuiming’s remnant soul that had turned to ashes along with the flower lantern.
Everything seemed to have ended before he returned.
Xie Zhefeng’s cold voice sounded.
This man was asking Qin Wei: “A great demon was suppressed under the Zhaoshui Sword; why did you never mention it to me?”
“I also only found out today when I saw the Zhaoshui Sword acting up.”
“When I arrived, both array hearts were marked, only waiting for the turbid energy to be cut off. I remember you are not good at arrays; yet you could find the omissions in the array so quickly?”
“And,” Xie Zhefeng lowered his voice, glancing at An Wuxue, “with such a major event in the sword array, why did you bring Su Xue, a cultivator only at the Fasting stage, here?”
An Wuxue’s movements paused, and his still-aching body tensed up.
He still couldn’t avoid it.
Qin Wei already knew his true identity. From the moment he spoke of Song Wu’s existence, he was prepared for there to be no turning back.
Just now Qin Wei had said to him, “not afraid I’ll kill you,” and until this moment he hadn’t done anything, out of consideration for the danger to the sword array. Now…
He closed his eyes and turned his head away, not wanting to see Qin Wei’s expression, nor wanting to see Xie Zhefeng’s reaction after finding out.
He heard Qin Wei say: “Of course I marked them for myself to see, so as not to make a mistake when acting.”
An Wuxue was startled and opened his eyes to look.
Qin Wei unhurriedly sheathed his sword, used a spell to remove the dust from his body, his expression calm, without a single flaw.
He said: “I am not good at arrays, but I stayed here with An Wuxue for over ten years; I still remember the way the Zhaoshui Sword Array works.”
He glanced at An Wuxue, his gaze appearing flustered for a moment, then suppressed by his seemingly composed expression. “You didn’t wake up when the incident happened. I was afraid I couldn’t find you at the critical moment, so I had to bring Su Xue along—doesn’t he have the Heavens and Seas Talisman you gave him?”
“What, why is Immortal Venerable Xie asking these boring questions? Is there something wrong with any of this?”
Every word and sentence was directly answering Xie Zhefeng’s questions, yet he didn’t mention anything about An Wuxue.
In Qin Wei’s response, An Wuxue really seemed to be just “Su Xue.”
An Wuxue hadn’t expected the other party to react this way, and he frowned, extremely puzzled.
He couldn’t figure out what Qin Wei’s purpose was.
Was it that he didn’t want to say all this in front of Song Buwang? Or…
His thoughts were suddenly cut off.
A sense of dizziness surged like overwhelming waves.
He was already mentally exhausted from dealing with the past, his spiritual energy was depleted after fighting Song Wu, and the furnace mark also showed signs of flaring up. Having held on until now, he suddenly lost all his strength.
His vision went black, and his body went soft.
Song Buwang seemed to be shouting: “Mr. Su! Mr. Su, what’s wrong with you?”
An Wuxue had a very long dream.
He knew he was in a deep dream, but he was too tired, too tired to open his eyes or wake up.
He watched the past of Zhaoshui City once more. But in his dream, Lou Wushang did not die young at eight; at ten, he followed him to enter the path of Fasting and joined Luoyue, becoming his disciple. At a young age, he reached the Minor Success stage and grew into a youth as elegant as jade and bamboo.
Song Wu’s second child also did not have dead meridians; this child was born with a steady temperament, neither crying nor causing trouble, and was instead stubbornly taken in by Qin Wei as a disciple, even claiming he would compete with his brother for the position of Chief.
The Zhaoshui Sword was dropped steadily, with no lack of spiritual energy, and naturally no need for a Tribulation sacrifice.
Thereafter, the Four Seas Ten Thousand Sword Array was dropped smoothly, Shangguan Liao Liao successfully found her brother back, Qi Xun’s entire sect was safe, and his junior brother attained the path and ascended to immortality, cleansing the two realms.
It was so beautiful that even though he knew it was a dream, he only wanted to never wake up.
But when the beautiful dream reached its end, he suddenly remembered he was not An Wuxue, but Su Xue.
Qin Wei knew his identity and hadn’t exposed it because Song Buwang was present.
Now… Xie Zhefeng should know, right? Luoyue Peak should also know, right?
He suddenly felt very cold.
Where am I?
Did they discover my identity and imprison me in the Cangu Tower?
He shuddered and suddenly opened his eyes, only to see a very familiar bed curtain.
It wasn’t the Cangu Tower.
This was… the room he lived in on the Frost-Burial Sea?
He looked down and realized it was because his movements in the dream were too large, pushing aside the silk quilt. The cool morning wind blew in from the slightly ajar window crack, bringing a chill.
He was dazed for a moment, rolled out of bed, and put on his outer robe.
Someone heard the sound of him waking up and shouted at the door: “Is Mr. Su awake?”
This voice…
He pushed the door open and saw Yun Wan.
After the Yunjian Sect matter, hadn’t Yun Wan stayed at the ruins of the Yunjian Sect to bury Yun Yao and the other deceased of the sect?
“Why are you here? I…” How did I get back?
Yun Wan smiled: “Is Mr. Su feeling better? Did you forget? Two days ago, a sudden change occurred in Zhaoshui City, and Mr. Su was caught in it and was injured and unconscious. It was the Immortal Venerable and Elder Qin who brought Mr. Su back.”
“I was also in Zhaoshui City at the time. The Yunjian Sect has become a thing of the past, and the fellow disciples are all seeking their own ways. I wanted to follow you, and the Immortal Venerable recognized me, so he brought me back together.”
An Wuxue heard a lot from this.
Xie Zhefeng still didn’t know his true identity?
Qin Wei didn’t say anything?
Just as he thought of Qin Wei, Yun Wan said at the right time: “By the way, that Elder Qin who came back with Mr. Su is currently outside the courtyard…” She lowered her voice, “He’s been there for the past two days. You didn’t wake up, and he didn’t come in, just kept waiting. It’s quite strange…”
An Wuxue’s body still felt a bit light, and he had intended to put everything aside and rest some more.
Hearing this, he pondered for a moment and then walked out.
Qin Wei was indeed outside the courtyard.
When he walked out, Qin Wei was leaning against a spiritual tree outside the courtyard, head lowered, holding his sword, just waiting like that.
The moment the sound of his footsteps approached, Qin Wei suddenly looked up and walked quickly toward him.
An Wuxue glanced at the soul bell he had hung at his door.
It’s perfectly fine; why didn’t he ring it?
Qin Wei seemed about to speak.
“Elder Qin,” he took the lead, “since you haven’t exposed me, you can say straight out what your purpose is.”