Chapter 79#
An Wuxue had never seen Xie Zhefeng like this.
His junior brother was cold yet close; the Immortal Venerable was heartless and distant.
But never had Xie Zhefeng been so terrified, not even during an episode of his inner demons had he been so disheveled.
Sitting by the bed, An Wuxue looked down at Xie Zhefeng, who was trapped within the spiritual chains on the mattress.
It’s not as if I’m trying to kill him.
I only coaxed him into sealing his own spiritual power. I’ll naturally untie him once the mark is placed. Why is he so afraid?
And why has he let himself become so disheveled?
An Wuxue was puzzled.
Perhaps because the current Immortal Venerable Chu Han was so humble and submissive, An Wuxue found himself less wary and guarded than usual in his daze.
His expression was flat, his tone softening as he spoke: “Junior Brother, your current feelings are born of obsession. I only wish to resolve the matter of your inner demons. Once the curse is cast, I will immediately unseal your spiritual power and divine sense. If there is anything wrong with the curse, I will also help you break it—”
“Senior Brother!!” The fear on Xie Zhefeng’s face deepened, and his voice grew increasingly hoarse. “I won’t interfere with you anymore. You can do whatever you want—”
He paused, as if remembering something, a glimmer of hope igniting in his eyes as he said urgently: “Right, you can place a slave seal on my divine soul! Let me be your slave! Let me live only according to your thoughts! If I ever make you unhappy, you can crush the slave seal at any time and end my life. How about that?”
He would rather have that than touch even a sliver of that Heartless Curse of unknown origin.
“Why go to such lengths?” An Wuxue shook his head. “If I truly intended to seek revenge on you, I would just let you be controlled by your inner demons or kill you.”
Since becoming Su Xue, he had actually encountered several opportunities to kill Xie Zhefeng, yet he had never taken them.
He gave a bitter smile. “Immortal Venerable, it’s just a curse of forgetting love. If it works, the Heartless Curse can set me free and help you succeed in your Dao once more, reaching even greater heights. Wouldn’t that be a happy ending for everyone?”
“No, that’s not it…” Xie Zhefeng said hurriedly. “I’m not afraid of death, but please don’t let me forget. Senior Brother, I beg of you…”
He shook his head desperately, completely losing his usual composure.
It was clearly just a Heartless Curse that would not harm his body, yet the man acted as if he were facing a punishment far more terrible than any torture.
Xie Zhefeng looked at him pleadingly, his voice full of tears. As he begged, the snow lotus sword mark on his brow materialized. It should have been pure white, but now a dark, black color slowly emerged.
That blackness flickered in and out—inner demons were once again surfacing in Xie Zhefeng’s soul.
“…This is the consequence of being obedient.”
It was Xie Zhefeng’s own voice.
But it echoed within his mind, heard only by him.
“Do you see? Senior Brother isn’t listening to your pleas; he remains unmoved! He knows perfectly well that this is more terrifying than death to you, yet he still wants you to forget him!”
“Better to let me…”
Xie Zhefeng’s pupils suddenly darkened.
His struggling movements ceased.
“Accept me.”
“Accept me, and my inner demon power will be enough to break through your own seal.”
“Following the rules? Being obedient? Is it useful? Has Senior Brother listened to a single one of your pleas?”
“Follow your heart’s desires; the world is yours for the taking! In the eyes of the countless mortals and thousands of cultivators of both realms, An Wuxue is still the sinner who slaughtered his fellow daoists and wiped out the Li Huo Sect. Even if you imprison him by your side, who would say anything?”
In an instant, the snow lotus sword mark grew even darker.
After being in the Guan Ye Array for so long, the inner demons had finally found an opportunity to flourish.
The sea of consciousness trembled.
Xie Zhefeng’s thoughts were in flux, with only a sliver of reason remaining.
No…
But, Senior Brother—he can’t forget Senior Brother!
He stopped moving, but his expression gradually showed a struggle.
An Wuxue’s expression faltered.
—He had seen that flash of black on Xie Zhefeng’s sword mark!
In a flash, just as Xie Zhefeng’s eyes grew vacant, he made a decisive move. He temporarily dispersed the hand seal in his hands and pressed two fingers together on Xie Zhefeng’s brow!
Immediately, he cast a sleeping spell on Xie Zhefeng’s divine soul, and the dark aura on the sword mark instantly retreated!
Before falling unconscious, the man seemed to give him one last look.
His eyes were still full of pleading.
“Senior Brother…” Xie Zhefeng’s lips moved slightly, his voice incredibly soft due to his weakness. “I don’t…”
Before he could finish, Xie Zhefeng finally closed his eyes uncontrollably and lost consciousness.
In an instant, the surroundings became as silent as death.
An Wuxue let out a sigh of relief.
He hadn’t let Xie Zhefeng fall asleep earlier because he feared the Heartless Curse might have other effects on a Long-Life Immortal’s divine soul, so he wanted to see how Xie Zhefeng would react so he could break the curse in time if something went wrong.
He hadn’t expected Xie Zhefeng to…
He should have just knocked the man out at the very beginning.
He glanced at the wounds on the man’s body caused by the spiritual chains during his struggle.
Even if it was just an incarnation, it was one with the cultivation of the Tribulation-Transcending stage; it should be resistant to fire and water and unharmed by ordinary iron.
Yet on Xie Zhefeng’s body, some wounds were deep gashes from the chains, bleeding freely and staining the bed like scattered red plum blossoms. It was clear just how much force the bound man had used in his struggle.
Back when An Wuxue was the First Seat of Falling Moon, even some great demons whose struggles were born of terror at his cruelty hadn’t shown such exaggerated wounds under the chains.
His junior brother’s inner demons had almost flared up again.
Was he that afraid?
Afraid… to an unseemly degree.
Everything happening now would have left him overwhelmed with joy at any point a thousand years ago.
But it was happening now.
Now, seeing the inner demons he had temporarily quelled, he only hoped the Heartless Curse would be effective.
Holding the hand seal, he dazed for a moment.
After a short while.
His expression composed itself. He closed his eyes, not looking at the man’s tear tracks or wounds.
In the silence, An Wuxue pushed the hand seal for the Heartless Curse onto Xie Zhefeng’s brow, and spiritual energy rippled gently.
In that instant.
The Heartless Curse was sent into the brow of Xie Zhefeng’s incarnation, and it was about to land on his divine soul!
Suddenly.
An unexpected change occurred.
Just as An Wuxue withdrew his hands from casting the curse, Xie Zhefeng’s divine soul suddenly trembled.
The moment the Heartless Curse touched the soul, the man’s soul actually repelled the curse outright!
What was going on!?
The curse failed, and the spiritual backlash shook An Wuxue’s internal organs. He hurriedly opened his eyes.
He saw Xie Zhefeng’s eyes tightly closed, his brows furrowed, looking exceptionally worried and afraid even in his sleep.
On the man’s brow, the snow lotus sword mark reappeared. The power of his divine soul fluctuated, driving out the Heartless Curse he had just placed. Before he could react, the hand seal simply dissipated!
An Wuxue’s heart sank.
Xie Zhefeng was unconscious and couldn’t possibly resist the Heartless Curse.
Yet he had set up a barrier around them, leaving only him and Xie Zhefeng inside.
If the curse failed and it wasn’t due to outside interference, there were only two possibilities: the target already had the same curse, or there was another curse that was incompatible with this one.
When curses were incompatible, the one that was repelled was inevitably the one cast by the person with the lower cultivation level.
Although his cultivation hadn’t returned to its peak, his divine sense had always been at the half-step to ascension level. If he were to be repelled, the caster of the other curse must have a higher cultivation level than his…
But any higher would be the Immortal Realm.
This… how could this be possible?
Xie Zhefeng was the peerless Long-Life Immortal!
What kind of person, and what kind of curse, could be placed on Xie Zhefeng and persist until now!?
Had Xie Zhefeng not broken the curse?
He even forgot to regulate his internal injuries from the backlash. After a moment of daze, he reached out again and formed another Heartless Curse hand seal.
He knew the casting wouldn’t succeed.
Earlier, things had happened too suddenly for him to get a good look. Doing it again wasn’t to succeed, but to investigate the source.
This time, he protected his meridians and internal organs before slowly sending the Heartless Curse into Xie Zhefeng’s brow once more.
His divine sense entered along with the curse.
The moment the second Heartless Curse touched Xie Zhefeng’s soul, An Wuxue’s divine sense immediately detected the aura of another curse.
That curse didn’t give his Heartless Curse any time at all, dispersing it in an instant!
He seized the opportunity and spread his divine sense, surrounding Xie Zhefeng’s soul. He finally clearly detected the other curse that had already been placed on Xie Zhefeng’s consciousness.
He froze.
This was…?
This was actually—!?
This was also a Heartless Curse!
An Wuxue’s eyes widened in shock.
He had been protecting his meridians and internal organs just moments ago, but now he had forgotten everything in his astonishment.
The backlash from the repelled curse struck him again, making his whole body tremble.
After two failed attempts at casting the curse, a sweet taste rose in his throat, and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
The blood dripped down, landing on Xie Zhefeng’s already blood-stained white robes and mingling with his blood.
He remained sitting there in a daze, his hands still holding the position for the seal, forgetting to move.
The caster’s cultivation was indeed higher than his.
Because it was in the Immortal Realm.
It was a particularly familiar aura of the Immortal Realm.
The owner of this aura had once pulled him from a snow-covered mountain of corpses and led him through the countless peaks of Falling Moon. He had taught him swordplay and guided him in becoming a person.
He had even taken him to Langfeng City and brought back the Xie Zhefeng who had almost been possessed by his own father.
It was the last person he could have imagined.
He murmured, “…Master.”
It was actually Master.
Master had cast the Heartless Curse on Xie Zhefeng.
He suddenly remembered the words Master had left him before his fall.
—“Though your talent is high, you cannot see through the tribulations. Whether you can ascend is yet to be seen. But your junior brother was born from killing his father and was gifted with a sword mark; he is the sharpest blade forged by the Way of Heartless. If he succeeds in his Dao, he will surely ascend and save the world, preventing the collapse of the great edifice.”
When Master said those words, had he already cast the Heartless Curse on his junior brother?
But before Xie Zhefeng entered Falling Moon, he already had a heart for slaughter. He could endure until the moment when Xie Zhui’s cultivation was at its lowest to kill him. He could also swing his sword to cut down the source of An Wuxue’s inner demons when An Wuxue himself couldn’t bear to. With such talent, why…?
He truly didn’t understand.
Why did Master still cast the Heartless Curse on Xie Zhefeng?
He remembered Xie Zhefeng’s fear and pleading just now.
With such a reaction, his junior brother must be unaware of this curse’s existence.
For over a thousand years.
Had Xie Zhefeng been bearing the Heartless Curse all along??
Countless questions weighed on An Wuxue’s chest, making it hard for him to breathe.
He then thought of the words Pei Qian had used to warn him.
—“This curse might actually not work on someone with the foundation for the Way of Heartless. It can only be used on those with the foundation for the Way of Floating Life. Consequently, it cannot serve as a method for Heartless cultivation; instead, it is a poisonous curse.”
The Heartless Curse might be a poisonous curse that only works on those of the Way of Floating Life…
Xie Zhefeng had been following the Way of Heartless since he entered the path, and his cultivation had progressed by leaps and bounds. His swordplay was extraordinary, and he reached ascension in just a few hundred years.
No one had ever doubted Immortal Venerable Chu Han’s unprecedented talent.
Even less could he doubt Xie Zhefeng’s foundation.
But now, he placed his fingertips on Xie Zhefeng’s wrist, checking his junior brother’s foundation for the first time.
Time within the Guan Ye Array seemed to pass, yet it also seemed to be permanently stalled. Within this inn, they seemed to be outside of time.
The bustling market beneath the window was a real past, a false present.
The barrier blocked all sound. He couldn’t hear the noise of the market; the silence was so absolute that he could only hear the intertwined breathing of himself and Xie Zhefeng.
After a long while.
An Wuxue suddenly laughed.
His laughter held no mirth, only the profound exhaustion of complex and tangled thoughts.
He had determined Xie Zhefeng’s foundation.
It was clearly… the perfect foundation for the Way of Floating Life.