Chapter 42#
The snow lotus sword-mark between Xie Zhefeng’s brows flared suddenly into view.
His gaze settled on An Wuxue’s face — his dark pupils deep and unfocused, his expression carrying a trace of desolation.
He held his body rigid. The murderous edge in his eyes rose slightly along with the black that seeped into the snow lotus sword-mark, then was suppressed in an instant.
The inner demon, held fast within the sea of consciousness, stirred. A voice identical to his own rang out through that inner sea once more.
“Why have you gone quiet?”
“Don’t you want him to be Senior Brother?”
“Oh — you’re afraid. You’re afraid he IS Senior Brother. If Suxue is Senior Brother, you don’t dare look back at everything that has passed between you and Suxue, don’t dare face the reality that he refuses to acknowledge you!”
Be quiet.
He said it inwardly.
That face — identical to his senior brother’s — appeared before him wearing a smile, just as it did in memory: Senior Brother cradling his sword, watching him practice his techniques with an easy grin.
The inner demon let out a cold laugh. “You still want Suxue to be Senior Brother. You want Senior Brother to come back, you want Senior Brother to be alive, you want —”
Xie Zhefeng closed his eyes.
Every sound the inner demon made dissolved into the Clarity Mantra.
He steadied himself, and opened his eyes again.
Suxue’s smiling face filled his vision at once.
The sea of consciousness fell silent, and then emptied all at once.
He was struck by a sudden, wrenching ache.
As though ten thousand arrows had pierced through his heart. As though fire consumed him and ice encased his bones.
If Senior Brother were still here…
If Senior Brother were standing right before him…
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
Qin Wei had said Suxue was not An Wuxue. Qi Xun had gone to Zhaoshui City to trace the thread of Suxue’s origins and had yet to return.
Whatever the truth, here and now, Suxue could not be Senior Brother.
Suxue was only Suxue.
To mistake Suxue for Senior Brother under the inner demon’s influence was like drinking a jar of immortal wine to the dregs — intoxicating, all-consuming, and one moment of carelessness away from being impossible to escape.
Even so, the pain of clarity was more bearable to Xie Zhefeng than that kind of surrender.
“What I did just now,” he said to Suxue — and to himself — “was the inner demon’s influence. It may not have been my intent. Now that you know this…”
His voice grew colder: “Do not test my limits again.”
At those words, An Wuxue, still wearing his smile, took a step back and put distance between himself and Xie Zhefeng.
He had been holding his breath the whole time, not daring to show fear. Only now did he let out a quiet, private sigh of relief.
Inside, he was even more shaken than Xie Zhefeng.
Each time he called out junior brother, it stirred up Xie Zhefeng’s heart — and it also stirred up the memory of Chuhan’s sword-light, cold and final.
If Xie Zhefeng had actually responded with Senior Brother…
He would have fled the scene without a second thought!
He steadied his expression and said slowly: “What nerve would I have to test the Immortal Sovereign’s limits? One word from you, and that peak master outside the door — who cultivated all the way to Tribulation Crossing — was sent off obediently to make a trip through Canggu Tower. I have no desire to —”
— to suffer again inside Canggu Tower.
He caught himself and pivoted smoothly: “— to die inside Canggu Tower.”
Xie Zhefeng seemed to have no wish to continue discussing the matter. He schooled his expression to cold neutrality and cut straight to the point: “I had intended to fully eradicate the inner demon before taking you to Beiming, but Beiming cannot wait. I will still be travelling by incarnation tomorrow. The situation is unusual. Given your cultivation level, accompanying my incarnation into Beiming may not be safe.”
This suited An Wuxue perfectly.
He took the opening: “Is Beiming… very dangerous right now? I heard you mention something about Beiming’s city seal and corrupt energy just now, but I’ve never been to Beiming, so I don’t know the specifics…”
“Perhaps.”
“…Perhaps?”
Had Shangguan Liaoliao’s transmission not made clear why the Northern Darkness Sword had been tainted by corrupt energy?!
“The transmission was only a handful of words,” Xie Zhefeng said. “Most likely the only talisman she managed to send out while the city is sealed. In a situation like that, the dangers within Beiming can only be more than expected, not less.”
“I’m telling you all this because I promised to take you into Beiming. Whether you go or not is your own decision.”
He finished speaking, and without looking at An Wuxue again, he turned and walked away.
“Immortal Sovereign!”
Xie Zhefeng turned his head slightly.
He had pressed down the inner demon’s turmoil; the snow lotus sword-mark between his brows had faded. When he glanced back, it seemed he had to force his gaze cold before he could bring himself to look at An Wuxue.
“I’m going to Beiming.”
Xie Zhefeng paused slightly, gave a small nod, withdrew his gaze, and said nothing.
An Wuxue continued: “But I heard you say just now that you won’t have time to eradicate the inner demon and will have to continue travelling by incarnation… you were in seclusion for so long. I assumed the inner demon had already been dealt with. How could it still…?”
He put on the look of someone genuinely puzzled and concerned. “The Immortal Sovereign is an ascended immortal. Can someone like that truly develop such a persistent inner demon?”
He had tried his best to look innocently confused — but Xie Zhefeng was genuinely not easy to fool. The moment his words had nothing to do with the senior brother of his past life, this person was once again the Chuhan Immortal Sovereign who had always stood at the highest peak.
Sure enough, Xie Zhefeng said, word by word: “You want to probe where my inner demon originated?”
An Wuxue startled.
“I only — it’s just that I’ve always heard that cultivators temper their body and cultivate their spirit, and only after both body and spirit are perfected and the mind is clear can one ascend to immortality. I’ve never heard of an ascended immortal being afflicted by an inner demon…”
Xie Zhefeng said nothing, his expression cool.
An Wuxue couldn’t help but think he had perhaps been too eager — barely out of one attempt and already fishing for information.
Better not arouse Xie Zhefeng’s suspicion again…
Fortunately, a transmission talisman flying to the window from outside arrived at an exceptionally timely moment.
Xuanfang had come.
Xie Zhefeng still needed to brief Xuanfang on various matters and did not linger. The spiritual energy around him surged, and in the blink of an eye he vanished from An Wuxue’s sight.
The moment he was gone, Yun Wan came briskly through the door. “Young Master Suxue, are you all right? I just saw the Immortal Sovereign dragging you back inside…”
“Nothing to speak of.”
“You say ’nothing’ to everything,” Yun Wan said, unusually exasperated. “It’s always ’nothing’s wrong,’ ’nothing to speak of,’ ‘it doesn’t matter’!”
An Wuxue: “……”
He felt a flicker of guilt, quickly sat down to one side, slumped over the table, and buried his face in his arms. “So tired,” he said quietly. “I’ll rest for a bit.”
Yun Wan: “……”
That night.
The uppermost floor of Canggu Tower.
A thousand years had passed since the Immortal Calamity came to an end. Every great demon at the Tribulation Crossing stage had perished beneath Chuhan’s sword-light. The last person to be imprisoned in the uppermost floor of Canggu Tower had been Yun Yao, two hundred years ago.
And yet now, in that place where not even birds alighted, someone was chained.
Qin Wei gripped the chains binding his arms with both hands. His entire body had gone numb with cold; he could feel nothing but the chill that drove straight into his soul.
It was so cold.
Since he had entered the Way at the Bigu stage, his spiritual energy had always shielded his body. Over a thousand years, he had forgotten what cold was.
Yet in these short two months, it felt as though every degree of cold he had missed across those thousand years had come to collect all at once. The hundred days that used to pass in a blink when he sat in meditation had each become unbearably long, stretched out by relentless, tearing pain.
As though someone were flaying him with a blade of ice, day after day, without end.
There were times he nearly couldn’t hold on — his soul teetering on the edge of a sleep it would never wake from — and then he would force himself to remember: How did Axue endure this back then?
He still had his disciple waiting for him outside. He had Xuanfang watching over the line between his life and death. He knew this was nothing but the hundred-day punishment he had chosen for himself, and when it was over, he would still be himself.
But Axue, back then, had none of that.
How had Axue endured?
How had Axue managed to carry no resentment at all?
He so desperately wished Axue had hated him.
Tap.
Tap, tap.
Qin Wei heard those unhurried, leisurely footsteps and knew without raising his head who had come.
“What is it?” he rasped. “Has the Immortal Sovereign Xie come to kick a man while he’s down?”
Xie Zhefeng stopped before him.
“Something has happened in Beiming. Shangguan Liaoliao has sealed all forty-nine cities of Beiming. After sending a request for aid, she has gone silent.”
Qin Wei stiffened. “…What?”
“I’m only here to inform you. Once you’ve finished this willful, pointless exercise and come out of the tower, take Xuanfang and keep watch over Falling Moon in my absence. Wait for word from me.”
Xie Zhefeng finished speaking, turned, and made to leave.
Qin Wei let out a short, derisive laugh.
“Willful, pointless exercise?” He had barely a breath to spare; every word he spoke sent his organs shuddering with cold. But his tone carried a note of schadenfreude. “At least I can still do this willful, pointless thing. Two hundred years ago, when you came out of seclusion after eradicating your inner demon — didn’t you want to do this same pointless thing? It’s just that you’ll never be able to. Not anymore.”
Xie Zhefeng’s expression went abruptly to absolute zero.
“When you put it that way — I suppose it’s fortunate my gifts weren’t good enough, and I still haven’t ascended.”
“Ha — hss—” Qin Wei had laughed too recklessly, forgotten his current situation, and the sudden movement felt as if every frozen limb had been shattered in an instant.
He grimaced and pressed on regardless: “You and Axue always had the edge over me in cultivation. At least I’ve beaten you in this. Now I know exactly how cold Canggu Tower is. What a shame, what a terrible shame — Xie Chuhan, you’ll never—”
He stopped dead.
Another layer of frost condensed over his already ice-rimed throat, threaded through with spiritual energy, sealing his voice and leaving him completely unable to make a sound.
Xie Zhefeng withdrew his hand and said quietly: “I truly will never know how cold Canggu Tower is.”
The two realms needed an ascended immortal to hold them steady. He could only be the immovable peak that Falling Moon stood upon.
“You deserve it. So do I.”
Deserve to seek hope and find none, yet be denied any peace in life, and unable to find any release in death. With no chance even to end it all at once, only to endure, day after day, with no end in sight.
All living beings longed for the immortal’s lifespan as long as heaven’s, impervious to all but the greatest calamity — yet in a world where Senior Brother could not be found, that lifespan had become only an unending sentence with no horizon.
The next day.
Dawn had barely broken when An Wuxue was already waiting at the gates of Frostsea.
He yawned. Behind him came a rush of wind, and he immediately came alert and caught Kunkun as it launched itself at him.
He had barely scooped Kunkun into his arms when Xie Zhefeng arrived close behind, and looked on as he held the creature with practiced ease.
The man had once again projected his incarnation, just as he had when they went to Cloud Sword Sect — sword Chunhua in hand.
An Wuxue: “……”
He stroked Kunkun’s head, making no move to let go — Xie Zhefeng already knew full well that Kunkun liked to be near him.
He asked: “Is the Immortal Sovereign really bringing Kunkun to Beiming City?”
“It helps me suppress the inner demon. Having it with me will prevent the kind of loss of control that happened in Zhaoshui City.”
“Wuwu!”
An Wuxue looked down at Kunkun. “Beiming sounds extremely serious. Is the Immortal Sovereign really only bringing me and Kunkun into Beiming?”
— Not only them, but not many more.
Beyond the few brief words, Shangguan Liaoliao’s message had also included credentials for entering Beiming under sealed conditions. With that Far Reaches Talisman in hand, one could pass directly through the barrier. But the number of people the talisman could bring through was limited — only a handful — clearly because Shangguan Liaoliao feared that opening the barrier wide while nothing was prepared outside could cause problems.
So Xie Zhefeng intended to enter Beiming’s barrier quietly by incarnation first, assess the full situation, and then decide on further steps.
Besides An Wuxue and Kunkun, he was bringing only one other person.
Before the gates of Langfeng City.
An Wuxue held Kunkun and looked at the Langfeng Sword soaring into the clouds ahead, then glanced sideways at Xie Zhefeng.
The man’s expression was calm, betraying nothing.
This was where Xie Zhefeng had been born — yet unless necessity demanded it, he had never come back. After the death of Xie Zhui, Xie Zhefeng’s biological father, no living being in the two realms — not even the cultivators of Langfeng City — knew that the Immortal Sovereign had come from Langfeng.
Xie Zhefeng moved forward, sword in hand.
The person they had come to meet was already waiting outside the city gates.
It was a Tribulation Crossing cultivator dressed in blue.
A divination chart hung from his shoulder. Six or seven spirit pouches dangled from his waist, alongside a compass, a spirit tortoise-shell, and other implements — all crammed together in a display that made An Wuxue’s eyes tired just looking at it.
“Are you Fellow Daoist Xie Chunhua of Falling Moon Peak?” The man clasped his hands and bowed, his cadence unhurried. “I am Pei Qian. I received Falling Moon’s message and have been waiting here — sorry for the trouble of routing through Langfeng to collect me. And this is?”
“Suxue.” An Wuxue offered only the name.
Pei Qian blinked. “That’s it?”
An Wuxue: “……” What else?
He had no sect, no school, no origin to speak of. Beyond this name — which wasn’t even truly his — there was nothing worth saying.
He said: “I only have something I need to look into in Beiming. Fellow Daoist Xie was kind enough to bring me along.”
Pei Qian was nothing if not direct: “This business with Beiming sounds grave. Falling Moon sent Fellow Daoist Xie, clearly a formidable figure, to lead the charge, then found me for my expertise in formations and barriers. I assumed someone at Great Completion who could shoulder this must have something remarkable about them.”
Xie Zhefeng seemed to be running short on tolerance for Pei Qian’s verbosity. He summoned the spirit-boat and stepped on, gesturing for An Wuxue to follow.
An Wuxue was about to turn when Pei Qian clapped a firm hand on his shoulder.
He stumbled slightly from the force. Kunkun raised its head and bared its teeth at Pei Qian with a low “wuwu.”
“Hey, this spirit beast — it’s cute, but it’s got quite a temper.”
Pei Qian laughed it off and continued: “Fellow Daoist Suxue, don’t worry. Never mind that Fellow Daoist Xie here looks deeply cultivated — my own expertise in formations rivals that of Sect Master Qi of Lihuo Sect. When it comes to anything involving the Beiming sword formation, I can handle it. Even the First Seat who laid that sword formation — if he were still alive, he might have to bow to me.”
An Wuxue: “…………”
Kunkun, who moments ago had been baring its teeth at Pei Qian, gave up and turned to bury its face in An Wuxue’s arms.
Pei Qian pressed on: “If anything dangerous comes up, you’ve got me and Fellow Daoist Xie looking out for you. Nothing to fear!”