Chapter 91#
The words still drifted outside the Ancient Tower, but An Wuxue had already turned, swallowing the pill that sealed his spiritual power, and stepped into the top floor amidst the thick frost.
A hundred days in the Ancient Tower was freezing to the bone, cold enough to freeze one’s soul into a daze.
Sometimes he would look toward the direction of the Frost Sea through the narrow window at the top of the tower, from which nothing could be seen.
Occasionally, he would remember Shangguan Liaoliao’s accusation that he “never had a heart.”
To say he wasn’t sad or angry would be impossible.
After all, she was the junior sister he had protected all the way.
But did he regret it?
He had never regretted anything.
At the time, he had no time to devise a foolproof solution. Killing Shangguan Ran was the only path left to protect Shangguan Liaoliao’s Dao heart.
With her Dao heart intact, North Abyss would have an expert who could suppress all other immortal cultivators, and he would have fulfilled his final promise.
At the moment he struck, his thought was to first silence him and then tell Shangguan Liaoliao he had only killed a fake. In the long years ahead, as some obsessions faded, he would find an opportunity to explain the details.
But Shangguan Liaoliao didn’t believe him.
Without proof, any evidence used or secret technique employed would reveal the real Shangguan Ran. He had gambled on Shangguan Liaoliao’s trust. He had won against the fake Shangguan Ran, but he had lost that trust.
But having done it, it was done.
The Four Seas Ten Thousand Swords Array was nearing completion, and the cultivation world was full of hope.
At the top of the Ancient Tower, he couldn’t see the mortal fireworks he so loved to watch.
When he left the tower, only Qi Xun and Kun Kun were waiting outside for him.
Qi Xun supported him.
He smiled, stroked Kun Kun’s head, and asked, “Have preparations for the Mingri City sword array begun?”
“Heal your injuries first,” Qi Xun said, looking at his pale face with concern and giving a forced, easy smile. “I’m not telling you. Come and ask me again when you’re better.”
He said helplessly: “Alright. And… where is my junior brother?”
Qi Xun’s movements paused.
Kun Kun, still a juvenile at the time, let its wings droop: “Whine…”
“He has been at the Frost Sea the whole time.”
An Wuxue was stunned.
At the Frost Sea the whole time…
Does that mean he has nothing to say about our dual cultivation or my imprisonment and punishment in the tower?
His eyes darkened, yet he felt it was to be expected.
Returning to his own grotto, he spent several months recovering but had not yet fully healed from the cold injuries sustained in the Ancient Tower.
That freezing sensation was like a maggot on a bone, impossible to shake off. Even if he appeared unharmed, a cold breeze would cause his peak Tribulation-Transcending body to instinctively shiver.
No one had ever left the top floor of the Ancient Tower alive. It was only because his attachments were so deep and he possessed the golden body and jade bones that a sliver of life remained.
But this sensitivity to the cold was something that would never truly go away.
He went to the Frost Sea. Standing before the gates, as he was about to ring his junior brother’s soul bell hanging from the tall pine, he felt the cold wind of the Frost Sea was somewhat unbearable.
He thought for a moment. Since there was no urgent matter, if he called the man out, what could he even ask?
Ask why his junior brother hadn’t said a word about his hundred days of punishment?
Or ask if the dual cultivation had affected his junior brother’s Dao heart?
He felt a lump in his throat and eventually didn’t ring the soul bell, leaving alone.
An Wuxue went to North Abyss.
He had once spent a long time in North Abyss.
In the past, whenever he entered or left North Abyss, he would always send a message to the First City’s manor.
Shangguan Liaoliao would come to meet him and say: “Brother looks after me on Falling Moon Peak. Now that you’ve come to North Abyss, you’re only allowed to walk behind me.”
But he would never send another sound transmission again.
Wearing a hat with a veil to block divine sense, he walked outside the First City.
He heard other cultivators coming and going talking:
“You say City Lord Shangguan is still in the manor and refusing to see guests? Is it because of Master Shangguan’s death?”
“He was her only blood relative, after all. What was An Wuxue thinking? Even if there was some mistake, why kill him so thoroughly that not a sliver of life remained?”
“They say he didn’t even leave time for a single last word for the City Lord.”
“He truly is cold-blooded and ruthless…”
“But he didn’t protect himself either; he went to accept his punishment. I’ll give him that—I admire him for that alone. If An Wuxue didn’t want to be punished, who could force him? If even he is like that, we should be careful when walking the world not to commit any crimes…”
He brushed past those people.
An Wuxue found the place where Shangguan Liaoliao had killed the real Shangguan Ran.
The North Abyss Sword had been established for several months, and the spiritual energy throughout North Abyss was becoming increasingly abundant. Demon cultivators had no choice but to hide.
The bodies of many great demons and monsters lay in the desolate lands outside the city. Demon cultivators didn’t dare come to steal them, and immortal cultivators were even less likely to handle these remains.
Shangguan Ran’s body still lay atop the mountain peak.
He had been struck between the brows by Shangguan Liaoliao’s sword light, erasing all life.
An Wuxue slowly knelt beside him, finding his clothes in tatters, his hair in disarray, and his eyes wide open, having died with grievances.
To maintain the deception, the fake Shangguan Ran had searched the soul of the real one. During his time alive, the real Shangguan Ran had already been a madman, and no one had straightened his clothes or hair.
He changed Shangguan Ran’s body into a set of clean robes and straightened his hair. Finding a place on the mountain where neither immortal cultivators nor mortals were likely to step, he set up a nameless monument.
After that, unless there was official business, he never proactively set foot in North Abyss again.
Memories returned.
The subsequent events were only An Wuxue’s own memories; they were still standing beneath the North Abyss primary sword array that had just been established.
The illusion was still at the moment Shangguan Liaoliao questioned An Wuxue about why he had killed Shangguan Ran.
Shangguan Liaoliao was still reaching out.
It was as if she were trying with all her might to grab hold of a past that would not look back, yet she knew it was all in vain.
Finally, her body swayed, and her fingertips touched the barrier Xie Zhefeng had established. She stopped moving.
Xie Zhefeng didn’t care about Shangguan Liaoliao’s condition at all, staring fixedly at An Wuxue.
This was also something Xie Zhefeng had investigated for a long time but had never been able to find out.
No wonder he could never find it.
The truth of this matter had been buried by An Wuxue himself. If there had been evidence back then to prove Shangguan Ran wasn’t her brother, while simultaneously protecting her from the fact that she had killed her own kin with her own hands, why wouldn’t An Wuxue have said anything?
Even the Soul-Nourishing Tree Spirit had no way of finding a past that left no trace and from which all resentment had dispersed.
No one had expected that centuries later, the Qu clan would produce a genius of the Way of Floating Life who would create a peerless trapping array that could confine people within their own pasts.
Nor would anyone have expected this array to be used by a malicious person to bring disaster to North Abyss, enveloping the entire First City and bringing them back a thousand years.
Xie Zhefeng had originally thought An Wuxue wouldn’t want to see this scene.
Using a method Shangguan Liaoliao couldn’t hear, he wrapped his voice in spiritual energy and sent it into An Wuxue’s ear: “Senior Brother…?”
Looking at the other’s thin figure, he wanted to pull him into an embrace.
But he knew his Senior Brother didn’t like him being close, so he could only stand stiffly to the side.
An Wuxue turned slightly to look at Xie Zhefeng.
He had also been staring fixedly just now, for so long that bloodvessels had appeared in his eyes.
Vaguely knowing what Xie Zhefeng wanted to say to him, he blinked gently and spoke in the same manner: “I indeed feared she would find out in my past life. In truth, after the sword array was established, she and I were merely fellow cultivators. But since I had decided to do it, I had to see it through.”
“After all, there was a bond from our acquaintance. Looking after her was what Master had promised North Abyss, and what I had promised Master. And… it wasn’t just for her, but also because the cultivation world lacked peak Tribulation-Transcending experts at the time. Even if she couldn’t ascend, if something happened to her, the balance between immortal and demon experts would easily become problematic.”
Xie Zhefeng said: “The North Abyss Immortal Lord’s curse has always been an obstacle she couldn’t let go of. That obstacle has persisted to this day, trapping her within it.”
“But I was hot-headed back then, hadn’t died once yet, and my thoughts were simple. There were too many things I couldn’t see through. In many matters, I was actually looking at flowers through a mist, thinking I understood when I was actually muddled.”
Nan He and the other immortals had passed too early. They were only youths in the cultivation world at the time, yet they had to carry the two realms. They seemed to occupy high positions, but in truth, many things were a first for them, and they were quite naive.
An Wuxue gave a light laugh. The rage and sorrow of those years were now just “muddled.”
Continuing to wrap his voice in spiritual energy, he spoke only to Xie Zhefeng: “Now, looking back—I used to feel sorry because I couldn’t tell her the truth, and I felt I hadn’t done my best. I even felt some regret until just now. But only until just now. Now I seem to truly see clearly.”
“Some things others cannot block, and some destinies others cannot take. And who am I? Even if I possessed the golden body and jade bones in my past life and was destined to save the world from collapse, in the end, wasn’t I just one of the thousands of immortal cultivators? Who do I think I am to try and take everything upon myself?”
“The Qu clan went to great lengths to find an adopted son for the Way of Heartless to protect Qu Jizhi, the genius of the Way of Floating Life. And in the end? What was meant to be Qu Jizhi’s tribulation, he still couldn’t escape.”
“In this array, the first time I stopped her, I thought that since it had been hidden for so long and I had been dead for a thousand years, it was better to let the past remain buried and have no karma. The second time I stopped her, I didn’t want to watch these things with her, like now—it’s quite meaningless.”
“But just now, I realized that my past self still hadn’t fully understood. Just let her be. As long as the array can be broken.”
An Wuxue was already dead.
These karmic ties were not something Su Xue would care about, nor did he need to.
As he spoke wistfully, he suddenly heard Shangguan Liaoliao’s voice ahead, trembling with a sob: “Xie Chuhan, I have hated him for a thousand years…”
In the illusion, the An Wuxue of a thousand years ago was facing the questioning of countless cultivators in the sword array.
The real Shangguan Liaoliao’s words mingled with those voices, reaching An Wuxue’s ears in overlapping waves, creating a sense of absurdity.
Every word she spoke was with great effort: “It was I who was blinded, who easily believed lies, mistaking a villain for my kin and ultimately killing my brother with my own hands…”
“That day, he only wanted to kill the fake first, tell me he wasn’t Ran-er, and hide the fact that I had killed my kin, making further plans afterward—if I had believed him then, nothing that followed would have happened. I didn’t believe him, and so I lost not only a brother but an elder brother as well. I was terrified the curse would come true, but in the end, the person who made it come true was myself.”
“And I actually kept asking him why!? He clearly told me, he told me again and again that wasn’t my brother. He clearly… he clearly never harmed me…”
“He told me…”
She wept.
She was the venerable commander of all North Abyss, who had lived through the Immortal Calamity and faced hardships since childhood. Rarely did she show weakness or break down.
She had only ever cried three times.
The day the North Abyss Immortal Lord fell, she cried without regret.
The day “Shangguan Ran” died, she cried with all her might.
But now, her face was covered in tear tracks, yet she couldn’t make a sound.
It was as if the suffocating pressure An Wuxue had borne had finally fallen upon her, leaving her unable to utter a single sound.
Her whole body was trembling. Although she knew now was not the time to look back at the past, every word she had spoken then was now floating through her heart.
She had said An Wuxue had personal grievances.
But those words aimed at sowing discord were all fabrications of that imposter. An Wuxue knew he was being maligned, yet he had remained kind to the “Shangguan Ran” whose identity hadn’t yet been exposed. How could there have been personal grievances?
She had said An Wuxue never had a heart.
Yet in order to protect her Dao heart and break her obsession, An Wuxue would rather enter the Ancient Tower for a hundred days of punishment than speak a single word to anyone else.
The one who should be heartbroken and regretful was her.
She had killed Shangguan Ran!
She had caused the death of her own brother!
Her elder brother had protected her to this point, yet in return…
Now… she would rather An Wuxue never had a heart!!!
Shangguan Liaoliao felt her blood surging, and the pain in her chest was like having her heart gouged out.
Though she couldn’t see, she stared fixedly in the direction of the “An Wuxue” from a thousand years ago, wanting to know his expression at the time.
…How disappointed must he have been?
“I’ve always resented him for not giving me a reasonable explanation. I even…”
Her voice faltered, lacking even the courage to finish the sentence.
She remembered what Su Xue had mentioned to her earlier.
—“Back then, the person you mentioned said he indeed had no evidence. The sword array was nearing completion, and in his urgency, he had no choice but to act first and report later. But the person he killed was not your brother.”
She had even forgotten that An Wuxue had actually explained to her.
She had taken An Wuxue’s explanation as a mere excuse and, a thousand years later, had forgotten it completely.
“City Lord Shangguan.”
Xie Zhefeng’s tone was flat, appearing completely unaffected by Shangguan Liaoliao’s emotions.
He said: “Why are you telling me these things? Whoever you feel you owe, you should tell them.”
“But—”
Shangguan Liaoliao trembled again.
But he was dead.
His name was tarnished, his soul dispersed.
When An Wuxue died, she was in North Abyss. Hearing the news, she felt wistful for a long time, thinking it a pity yet also feeling it was the result of An Wuxue’s long-standing grievances.
Now…
Now she only hated herself for doing nothing!!
If she had stepped out of North Abyss on the day he was being condemned by everyone and drawn her sword to help him just once?
Would he still have died?
She should have helped him!
She owed him so much, yet in the end, she let him die a tragic death!
Even before knowing the truth, she had thought An Wuxue was such a good person.
Now, she only felt that such a good person…
Such a good person should have been wearing comfortable yet luxurious robes, his dark hair in a jade crown, a snowy-white spiritual pouch swinging at his waist. He should have been holding a lantern, walking slowly down a main street beneath a cloudless starry night in the prosperous era he had worked so hard to create, listening to the performance on the roadside stage singing of his deeds…
“Aah—!!!!”
The overwhelming pain finally crushed her. Shangguan Liaoliao could no longer hold herself up, clutching her forehead as she collapsed to her knees in agony.