Chapter 82#
An Wuxue was slightly stunned.
He didn’t quite understand Xie Zhefeng’s words.
“Immortal Venerable,” he said, “I didn’t cast the curse on you.”
Xie Zhefeng’s expression froze.
He was terrified of An Wuxue casting that Heartless Curse he had never heard of, yet hearing the other say so calmly that he hadn’t cast it, he found himself unable to believe it.
He still remembered An Wuxue’s completely unmoved expression before he lost consciousness…
He hesitated for a moment, still looking slightly up at his Senior Brother, and whispered, “…Is that true?”
An Wuxue was silent for a moment.
Before Xie Zhefeng woke up, Pei Qian had come over once more, bringing Qu Jizhi’s answer.
Pei Qian had told him: “Qu Jizhi broke the curse primarily because I hadn’t cast it with full force; the curse was loose to begin with.”
“As time passed, he slowly realized something was wrong, but because he didn’t know the Heartless Curse existed, he didn’t know what it was. So he also opened a Guan Ye Array for himself…”
“He wandered in the Guan Ye Array for three hundred years, trapping himself and constantly recalling the events of his life from childhood until finally breaking the shackles of the Heartless Curse and remembering—wait, I can’t say ‘remembering,’ but rather that he became ‘sick’ again. Then he realized there might be a curse on him and also spent a long time in the Qu family estate within the Guan Ye Array. That’s also how the other members of the Qu clan learned the mechanics of the Guan Ye Array.”
“After all, with Qu Jizhi’s status, after three hundred years in the array, the Qu clan elders saw it all. He couldn’t say for sure who had taken the opportunity to learn the array.”
“In any case, he eventually found the Heartless Curse as well.”
“And then he broke the curse for himself?” An Wuxue asked.
“Yes. At that time, his cultivation was much higher than when I cast it on him; breaking it was easy.”
So, Qu Jizhi’s case was somewhat different from Xie Zhefeng’s.
Xie Zhefeng’s curse was placed on his divine soul by Immortal Venerable Nan He himself during the Immortal Calamity.
Who was Nan He?
He was the leader of Falling Moon Peak, the foremost sect of the cultivation world at its peak. He was a genius of the Way of Heartless who could suppress all the other immortals even when the Long-Life Immortals and dozens of others still existed. When disaster struck North Abyss, the genius of the Way of Floating Life, the North Abyss Immortal Lord, was also ultimately slain by Nan He’s sword.
Though Xie Zhefeng was a heaven-sent genius and the fastest person in history to ascend, at the end of the day, his junior brother had only been an immortal for a thousand years, and his Way of Heartless had been broken, trapping him in inner demons for eight hundred years. Could the current Xie Zhefeng’s cultivation be higher than that of Nan He, who had already been an immortal for thousands of years when the curse was cast?
Not necessarily.
But if Xie Zhefeng couldn’t break the Heartless Curse, yet found out that this curse had been engraved on his soul since his youth, what would happen?
The Heartless Curse was already a thing in name only and had no effect on Xie Zhefeng. If An Wuxue took a wrong step, it might cause complications…
Returning to his thoughts, An Wuxue looked at the anxious Xie Zhefeng before him and finally decided not to mention the fact that Nan He had cursed him.
He eventually just said, “Does the Immortal Venerable not feel for himself whether he’s under a curse? It’s not as if you haven’t cultivated the Way of Heartless; can you not tell the difference between having feelings and being heartless? Not casting a curse means not casting a curse. I have no reason to play tricks on you regarding this.”
Xie Zhefeng was stunned.
His gaze shifted as he truly considered An Wuxue’s words.
As he gradually cleared his mind from the nightmare, he recalled what he had just said and felt it was incredibly foolish. Yet, in the face of such foolish words, An Wuxue hadn’t said anything…
After a few breaths, he lowered his head, the corners of his mouth rising in an uncontrollable smile—An Wuxue truly hadn’t cast the curse on him!
But as soon as the smile appeared, he hurriedly suppressed it.
He didn’t even dare to bring up the Heartless Curse. He quickly said, “Then are we waiting until tomorrow or the day after to enter the Qu estate and kill the Shangguan Liaoliao of the illusion?”
An Wuxue nodded, then frowned slightly.
“You… you should get up and sit down.”
With Xie Zhefeng kneeling before him and looking up at him like that, he felt truly awkward.
He already knew about the Heartless Curse. Regarding everything in the past, he didn’t know whether to love or hate.
But the fact that he had died under the Chu Han sword could not be changed. Whether it was a hardship or a hidden reason, in the end, it was all from his past life.
If his lack of desire for revenge or killing intent toward Xie Zhefeng before was because the world needed the Chu Han sword and the two realms needed a Long-Life Immortal, then now, it was truly a state of no love and no hate.
Consequently, when he spoke to Xie Zhefeng, his tone was much softer.
Xie Zhefeng looked at him with some trepidation. After hesitating for a moment, he obediently stood up and sat in the wooden chair on the other side of the tea table.
Only then did An Wuxue send a sound transmission next door.
Xie Zhefeng glanced at the bloodstains on his sleeve, wanting to ask why An Wuxue had treated his wounds but not given him a change of clothes—even Jiang Qing, who had only met his Senior Brother a few times, had received such treatment.
But he didn’t dare ask, so he quietly changed into a new set of white robes on his own.
Before long, Pei Qian and the young Immortal Master Qu entered together.
Between their wrists was the spiritual rope.
An Wuxue raised an eyebrow.
Pei Qian gave a sheepish laugh. “I told you he’s sick.”
Qu Jizhi smiled and said, “Are these two the ones from Falling Moon Peak whom Pei Qian said came to aid North Abyss?”
An Wuxue checked Pei Qian’s spiritual power and said calmly, “The seal on your spiritual power hasn’t been broken yet? If you want it broken, I can do it for you.”
Qu Jizhi’s face darkened.
When these two entered, Xie Zhefeng had suppressed all his expressions and sat to the side with a cold face.
As soon as Qu Jizhi gave An Wuxue a look of dissatisfaction, the man turned a cold gaze toward the two who had entered.
Immortal Venerable Chu Han normally just stood there with his sword, and countless immortal cultivators would be terrified. His cool gaze carried pressure that made both Qu Jizhi and Pei Qian flinch.
Qu Jizhi’s soul first trembled for no reason, and in the next moment, after regaining his senses, he took a step forward to block Pei Qian behind him.
Pei Qian groaned inwardly.
On one side were the Immortal Venerable and the First Seat, and on the other was Qu Jizhi.
He hurriedly said, “No need to break it, no need to break it… he hasn’t done anything to me… aren’t we going to talk about the Guan Ye Array?”
An Wuxue reached out, inviting them to sit, and then said, “Young Immortal Master Qu told Pei Qian earlier that you were trapped in the array for three hundred years and that the Qu clan elders knew about it, so you couldn’t be sure if someone had secretly learned the array’s mechanics from outside while you were trapped.”
“But since you are the only successor of this generation, the Qu clan must care about your safety. There shouldn’t be many people who knew you were trapped in the Guan Ye Array.”
“You want to ask me who in the Qu family is most suspicious, right?” Qu Jizhi said directly. “That would naturally be my mother, the head of the Qu family, Qu Wenxin.”
An Wuxue was startled.
He knew that name.
Before his death, Qu Wenxin wasn’t the head of the Qu family yet. She was roughly his contemporary and had served under him when the North Abyss Sword Array was being established.
Regarding her character, An Wuxue had no impression of it. She seemed to be an array path immortal cultivator with some talent but nothing extraordinary.
There were many, many people like her during the Immortal Calamity.
Xie Zhefeng also asked, “Since she is your biological mother, do you have no other suspects?”
“Yes, many, but she is the one most likely to be able to use bloodline power to secretly enter my Guan Ye Array and learn the mechanics. The Qu clan demon cultivator Pei Qian mentioned already has the cultivation of the Tribulation-Transcending stage; who can command a Tribulation-Transcending member of the Qu family? Only her.”
“She is my biological mother, but I must say that after I emerged from the Guan Ye Array, she had changed a lot. I can no longer be sure—”
Qu Jizhi toyed with the spiritual rope tied to Pei Qian. Only when Pei Qian glared at him did he continue with satisfaction, “In the hundreds of years I was in the array, did her Dao heart change?”
He turned to look at Xie Zhefeng, then lowered his gaze, his tone quite respectful. “Besides, Pei Qian must have told the Immortal Venerable about the karma between him and me. Since my mother could attempt such a deceptive scheme, she has always been someone who will do anything to achieve her goals.”
Pei Qian nodded. “That’s true—wait, I don’t think I’ve told you this is the Immortal Venerable!”
Qu Jizhi tilted his head. “Over the past century, the Immortal Venerable has occasionally come to North Abyss to consult the records. Every time, City Lord Shangguan personally received him. Once, I happened to visit the City Lord’s manor and saw him from a distance. Although I couldn’t see his face clearly, the Immortal Venerable’s demeanor is peerless; once seen, it cannot be forgotten.”
An Wuxue: “…”
Only then did he realize that after Xie Zhefeng had sealed his own spiritual power, the illusion on his face had failed, and he hadn’t covered his face again.
Qu Jizhi looked at An Wuxue again. “But this fellow daoist, I truly do not recognize. I’ve thought through all the renowned Tribulation-Transcending cultivators in both realms, and I can’t find anyone who matches.”
Pei Qian muttered, “It would be strange if you could…”
An Wuxue smiled and said, “I was bored tonight and went to buy a play to read. I heard mortals talking about you, calling you the ‘Little North Abyss.’ They say you are exceptionally brilliant and socially adept, a shadow of the North Abyss Immortal Lord before he turned demonic. Looking at you now, those words are indeed true.”
“But I have one thing to say.”
“Oh?”
“Having his demeanor is fine, but don’t be too much like him.”
Qu Jizhi laughed, understanding the warning in An Wuxue’s words.
“I will not turn demonic,” he said. “If only for Pei Qian’s sake, I could never take such an irrevocable path.”
Having made his point, An Wuxue continued, “Then how did you run into us?”
“That really was a coincidence. After the array started, all the souls in the First City were pulled in. I wandered through it and discovered it was the array I had created. I originally wanted to investigate. But after all, I’m only one person. At most, I can move freely within it due to my knowledge of the array; I can’t do anything extra.”
“So I thought I might as well not waste the opportunity. I looked through several illusions until I found the day of the wedding banquet. I was originally thinking of taking the Pei Qian of five hundred years ago to complete the union, but it turned out to be an unchangeable Death Gate. Just as I was about to break the illusion and leave, I found another Pei Qian. He and I are truly a match made in heaven.”
Pei Qian shouted, “You’re sick!! What match made in heaven!?”
An Wuxue: “…”
Kun Kun: “…Whine.”
Even Xie Zhefeng turned his head away, not wanting to look at these two.
Having asked everything they needed to, An Wuxue said, “In that case, tomorrow we will enter the Qu estate to find Shangguan Liaoliao. The Immortal Venerable and I will take the opportunity to investigate the Qu Wenxin of five hundred years ago. Let’s rest tonight. Whatever private matters you two have, go settle them elsewhere.”
Pei Qian was the first to let out a sigh of relief. He took the initiative to pull the spiritual rope, calling Qu Jizhi “madman,” “dog,” and “sick” as he dragged him away.
An Wuxue was also tired.
He said to Xie Zhefeng, “I’ll go to another empty room to rest. The Immortal Venerable can do as he pleases.”
Xie Zhefeng instinctively stood up to stop him.
For no reason other than he was afraid his Senior Brother would leave his sight, afraid he would leave again.
But this time, An Wuxue only looked back at him in confusion. His heart skipped a beat, and he said suddenly, “I… it’s nothing. I won’t hinder Senior Brother. Rest well.”
An Wuxue studied him for a few more moments, didn’t see anything strange, and then took Kun Kun into the next room.
The door to the guest room was open, but Xie Zhefeng had no heart to close it. After hearing the sound of An Wuxue entering the next room, he suddenly lost his strength.
He didn’t know why his Senior Brother had eventually changed his mind and not cast the Heartless Curse, but he was afraid that his feelings had been too obvious just now, making his Senior Brother uncomfortable and wanting him to forget again.
At the thought of this, his mind was in chaos, and he could only rely on his last sliver of reason to maintain his outward expression.
Now that the other person was gone, Xie Zhefeng went completely limp, leaning against the window frame with lingering fear.
After an unknown amount of time.
He finally got into bed and lay down without undressing.
On this night in the illusion of five hundred years ago, the moon was bright and the stars were few. Red lanterns that never went out were hung everywhere outside the Qu family estate.
The tall window was not closed, and a night breeze blew gently.
Immortal Venerable Chu Han lay on the mortal bedding. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt his Senior Brother was suddenly sitting by the bed, raising his hand to seal his spiritual power and whispering to him, “You should forget.”
He opened his eyes abruptly. The moon shone into the guest room, but there was clearly nothing there.
He spread out his divine sense and could still feel his Senior Brother’s aura next door; the other was clearly sleeping peacefully.
Yet he was completely and utterly unable to fall asleep.