Chapter 54 – Hide Him in the Heart

Chou Bodeng trembled slightly.

Every inch of his skin was as white as ice, and just as hard and cold, as if an endless stream of frigid air was bursting from the cracks of his joints. Yet, his blood boiled like lava. His bones became a frame, twisted and then forced straight, like a sword embryo thrown into a furnace—first seared by fire, then quenched by ice. Over and over, a living person was forged into an angry weapon.

Its edge slashed at the enemy, and also at itself.

The most ferocious and the sharpest.

Who would be willing to embrace a double-edged sword?

Shi Wuluo held him tightly, pressing this ferocious sword into his own chest, hiding it in his own heart, making his ribs and his flesh its armor.

An ancient blessing echoed.

Four words a line, two lines a stanza. It was no longer as clear as fresh snow, no longer as light as a whisper. It was less a song and more a command crashing down from the highest azure sky. The soaring black waves surged, collapsed, and roared, all to no avail. A long, scarlet saber hung high in the air, and thousands of vengeful ghosts and venomous resentments were all drawn into its blade, seeping into it and making it an ever newer, ever more brilliant blood-red.

The crests of the waves were pressed down, one after another, and the moonlight once again stretched for thousands of miles in an instant.

Chou Bodeng’s body, which had been as tense as cold iron, suddenly relaxed.

The moonlight, like gauze, like mist, sprinkled down from high above, flowing over his exposed back. It was clear and transparent, covered in a fine layer of sweat. The pale blue veins under his skin were faintly visible. Blood and flesh had returned to his body. He had become a person again, not a silently roaring, tormented soul.

The teeth biting his shoulder gradually loosened. The youth leaned against his shoulder, exhausted and drowsy.

The scarlet saber silently fell back into place.

Shi Wuluo gently pushed aside the damp black hair scattered across Chou Bodeng’s face.

His features were striking, his eyebrows long and sharp. Usually, a single lift or arch of his brows was as aggressive as a blade’s edge, but when they were furrowed, he looked particularly haggard and beautiful. Shi Wuluo reached out and smoothed them, bit by bit, his fingertips pressing over the arch of his brow.

Back then, just how much did you hurt?

He asked softly in his heart.

This was a question Shi Wuluo had asked countless times, day after day.

Every time he asked, the double-edged sword hidden in his heart would turn once. But no matter how many times he asked, he never got an answer. In the end, he could only search for it himself.

Why didn’t you care for your injuries?

Because it was only in pain and agony that one could barely find traces of another person’s past existence. By enduring the pain and agony another person had suffered, thinking about how much they must have hurt, every wound became proof that they were still there, searing the nerves day after day, month after month, year after year, maintaining one’s sanity.

Only in this way could one endure the powerless passage of time.

But just how much did it hurt?

Shi Wuluo still didn’t know.

The only person who knew the answer to the question was curled up in his arms, his eyelashes lowered, sleeping quietly. Shi Wuluo watched him for a while, then ran his fingers through his black hair, drew him closer, and kissed him.

A very light kiss.

Like snow falling on an eyebrow.

The wind was calm, the sea was still, and the water and sky shared the bright moon.

***

Red Railing Street.

Zuo Liangshi turned to look at the Cangming Sea. “The tide has receded.”

“Mm.”

Zuo Liangshi guessed with certainty, “There’s still someone with him?”

“Mm.”

Zuo Liangshi was exasperated. “Is ‘mm’ the only thing you can say?”

“No,” Jun Changwei said faintly. “In fact, I don’t want to say a single word to you… How on earth did the Mountain Sea Pavilion end up with a weirdo Pavilion Master like you?!”

“Can’t be helped. My family has only had one heir for generations.” Zuo Liangshi quickly pressed down on the Gold-Inlaid Saber. “Stop, stop. You’re an elder now. Don’t resort to fighting at the drop of a hat.”

A vein throbbed on Jun Changwei’s forehead. “Forget fighting at the drop of a hat, I can also start hacking people at the drop of a hat. You believe me?”

Thanks to the great fire from the first half of the night, most of Red Railing Street had been burned down. The disappointed guests had left, and the courtesans and dancers with nowhere to go could only linger on the street, leaning against walls to tidy each other’s clothes, or simply hugging their arms and falling asleep. The street was filled with fallen songbirds.

Zuo Liangshi and Jun Changwei were also squatting by the side of the street. To avoid attracting attention, they were both wearing women’s long robes…

It was a good thing Monk Budu had run off quickly and hadn’t seen them, otherwise the reputations of the Pavilion Master of the Mountain Sea Pavilion and the Elder of the Taiyi Sect would have been shattered.

“Alright, alright…” Zuo Liangshi suddenly grew serious. “They’re here.”

Jun Changwei covered the hilt of his saber with his sleeve.

A faint rustle of clothing passed through the air, like a light sea breeze brushing against the roof tiles, but not a single figure passed through the smoldering embers. Jun Changwei closed his eyes and, without using his spiritual sense, relied solely on his ears to discern… Every sound on Red Railing Street entered his ears. The wind passed through, and the airflow outlined the pillars, beams, and the figure that passed by like a wisp of smoke.

One.

Two.

Three.

…

They came from all directions of Zhunan City, silently heading to the Qin Wei Tower, and then leaving without a trace.

After the last figure left, Jun Changwei opened his eyes and turned to look coldly at Zuo Liangshi.

Zuo Liangshi patted his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

The two returned to the Tide-Watching Tower.

The two Mountain Sea Pavilion disciples who had fainted from fright were sprawled out, sleeping so soundly that they were drooling… Zuo Liangshi was speechless for a moment, then grabbed them one in each hand and tossed them off the tower. With two thuds, they landed on the boat docked below, each getting a large bump on their head and being knocked out again.

Normally, Jun Changwei would have already mocked him a couple of times, but now he wasn’t laughing.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time,” Jun Changwei said, cradling his Gold-Inlaid Saber, his expression icy. “Is your Mountain Sea Pavilion still the same Mountain Sea Pavilion it once was?”

“I’d like to say yes, but I can’t.” Zuo Liangshi turned around, his robes fluttering in the sea breeze. He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Grand Elder Ying, Grand Elder Yan, Elder Meng… What a lively scene. A single fire accidentally startled out so many people. And these are just the impatient ones. Who knows how many more are left.”

“Speak,” Jun Changwei said, crossing his legs and sitting down. “What’s the situation?”

For once, Zuo Liangshi didn’t care about his image and sat down opposite him. “Before, when the Hundred Clans were migrating south and wanted to borrow a path, I deliberately let some information slip. In three days, more than thirty Grand Elders came to see me privately. Some strongly advocated for letting them pass, others strongly refused… Unfortunately, of those who thought they shouldn’t be allowed to pass, some were testing me, and others were not sincere.”

He pulled a piece of paper filled with names from his sleeve and handed it to Jun Changwei.

“I felt then that I couldn’t wait any longer, but when I really started to deal with it, I found it was worse than I imagined.” Zuo Liangshi tapped his finger. “Grand Elder Ying Zhong has completely sided with the Hundred Clans… He’s one of the most direct ones, having Yu Qiao get together with the second son of the Taiyu Clan. This group is also very close to the Hundred Clans.”

“What about the remaining three?”

“These three are very strange.” Zuo Liangshi pondered for a moment, then said in a low voice, “I have a guess, but it’s hard to say.”

“We’re at this point already. What’s there to be hesitant about?” Jun Changwei asked lightly.

“I suspect that the ones who contacted them were not the Hundred Clans, not the Thirty-Six Overseas Islands, and not Heaven Beyond Heavens.” Zuo Liangshi took a deep breath and said slowly, “It was… the Great Wilderness.”

“They’re insane!” Jun Changwei blurted out. “Contacting the Great Wilderness? How dare they?!”

That which is without light and without wind is the Wilderness.

The Twelve Continents of the Central Lands and the Thirty-Six Overseas Islands were where people lived. Beyond that was an endless darkness, an endless nether filth, called the “Great Wilderness.” No matter how deep the conflicts and grudges between the Kongsang Hundred Clans and the Eight Cardinal Immortal Sects were, the two sides could still barely coexist. But the Great Wilderness was different.

The Great Wilderness was in absolute opposition to all mortals, all cultivators, and all living things in the Twelve Continents of the Central Lands and the Thirty-Six Overseas Islands.

An absolute, life-and-death struggle!

Even the most ignorant child could casually draw a rough map of the three realms.

First, draw a circle in the middle of the paper. Inside the circle, draw a few landmasses colliding and pieced together haphazardly—these were the Twelve Continents. Then, sticking to the circle, draw a ring of islands not too far from the land—these were the Thirty-Six Islands. Then, randomly place a rock somewhere in the circle—this was the Cloud City, Heaven Beyond Heavens, whose exact location no one knew.

The rest of the area outside the circle was all colored black.

—That was the Great Wilderness.

When children drew the “Map of the Three Realms,” the circle was always very small, taking up less than a tenth of the paper, while the darkness outside the circle was always very, very large. Some would even use charcoal to draw tentacle-like black whiskers extending from the Great Wilderness, running rampant within the circle—that was the miasma that flowed endlessly across the land.

The child was ignorant, yet they had drawn the most fundamental appearance of the world.

All living beings, whether immortal or mortal, were actually living in a patch of darkness. It was just that people used cities as candles to ignite a patch of light in the darkness. These candlelights, like fireflies, gathered together, and along with the tireless Golden Crow and Mysterious Rabbit, they drove away the obscuring gloom, giving all living things a place to stand.

But the darkness was vast and boundless, always ready to swallow this hard-won land of life back into its belly.

Just like the Miasma Moon and the cities.

Thus, the Immortal Sects and the City Pacts formed a bond, coexisting.

To associate with the Great Wilderness was tantamount to betrayal! A betrayal not only of the Mountain Sea Pavilion, but of the entire Twelve Continents, the entire mortal realm.

“How dare the people of your Mountain Sea Pavilion associate with the Great Wilderness?” Jun Changwei stared at Zuo Liangshi. “What the hell are you doing as the Pavilion Master?”

“Why wouldn’t they dare?” Zuo Liangshi retorted. “They dared to let Soul Thread Seeds circulate in the ghost market, they dared to let people of unknown identity enter the Treasure Market of Zhunan for some money and weapons. What else wouldn’t they dare to do?”

“Before I came to Zhunan, I thought your Mountain Sea Pavilion at most had one or two rotten branches. I didn’t expect the roots to have started rotting.” Jun Changwei was scathingly sharp.

“Do you still remember our immortal sect debate from that year?” Zuo Liangshi asked.

“I remember.”

“On the third day, during the sect debates, the Mountain Sea Pavilion faced the Taiyi Sect. In the policy debates, nine out of ten of your Taiyi people lost to us from the Mountain Sea Pavilion. At that time, I even laughed at you, saying how your Taiyi had so many single-minded fools.” Zuo Liangshi said lightly, “But smart people are not necessarily better than fools.”

“Are you looking for a beating?”

“If you want to beat me, do it later.” Zuo Liangshi smiled nonchalantly. “I’m not insulting you, I’m praising you. Do you know what I’ve been thinking about recently?”

“How would I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’ve been thinking, are people really that selfish? The smarter they are, the more selfish they become. You ask me how the Mountain Sea Pavilion became like this? The answer is actually very simple… Those who do business, those who make deals, are most proficient at calculating. They calculate and calculate, and then they feel that everything is a loss, that they are unwilling to give anything for free. They calculate and calculate, and they feel that a little bit here and a little bit there doesn’t matter, and they forget that sand gathers to form a tower, and fur gathers to make a robe.”

Jun Changwei was silent for a long time before spitting out a sentence: “A thousand-mile dike collapses from an ant’s nest.”

Zuo Liangshi clapped his hands. “Not bad. If you had this level back then, you wouldn’t have gotten zero points in the policy debate.”

Without another word, Jun Changwei spun his saber and smashed it into his face.

Smack.

Blood gushed from Zuo Liangshi’s cheekbone. Jun Changwei had hit him extremely hard, but he hadn’t dodged. Or rather, he had sought out Jun Changwei today precisely so someone could beat him up.

“Didn’t I say? Don’t hit the face,” Zuo Liangshi said softly.

Jun Changwei sneered and retracted his Gold-Inlaid Saber. “When I beat you, I should aim for the face.”

Back when Zuo Liangshi was thrown into Taiyi by his father for an “exchange,” because the entire Taiyi Sect was practicing thrift—which is to say, they were rather poor—they didn’t give the distinguished guest from the Mountain Sea Pavilion any special treatment. They checked and found that Jun Changwei’s courtyard had an empty room, so they stuffed him in there.

The two couldn’t stand the sight of each other. If it weren’t for Senior Sister Meng keeping them in line, they probably would have torn the house down. But if one had to say, Jun Changwei was, more or less, one of the people who understood this pretentious guy Zuo Liangshi the best.

Zuo Liangshi was extremely concerned with his image. Even if he knew he was wrong, he would never admit it openly; he couldn’t bring himself to do it. But he happened to have a bit of a conscience, so if there was something he couldn’t get over, he would pick a fight, knowing full well he couldn’t win. He just had to fight.

In Jun Changwei’s eyes, this was yet another proof of him being a “spineless pretty boy”: he didn’t even dare to admit his own mistakes, didn’t dare to face them. If that wasn’t a coward, a spineless person, what was it?

It was despicable.

“I know you look down on me,” Zuo Liangshi smiled. “I look down on myself too.”

“Spit it out. What exactly are you regretting?” Jun Changwei said.

“A hundred years ago, Zhou Ziyan begged me to consult the Celestial Track Map. I refused. Now I regret it.” Zuo Liangshi took back the list and tapped a few names on it. “I felt that a single Ru City was not worth the Mountain Sea Pavilion making a big move, not worth the Mountain Sea Pavilion confronting Kongsang head-on. They also felt that a single Mountain Sea Pavilion was not worth them guarding the mountains and suppressing the seas, burying their bones in Undying City… After Ru City, many people’s actions became more and more obvious.”

Zuo Liangshi folded the paper and tossed it.

The paper burned in mid-air, turning to ash.

“I abandoned Ru City, and they abandoned the Mountains and Seas. Karma is a cycle, and retribution is swift.”

“You’ve been hanging around the bald donkeys from the Buddhist Sect too much. You even talk with their roundabout flavor,” Jun Changwei said. “Stop beating around the bush. What do you want to do? Just say it.”

“I want to burn away the rotten branches and decayed roots together.”

Zuo Liangshi looked him straight in the eye.

“I want to purge the mountains and suppress the seas.”

Each word was like the clash of metal.

He was still wearing the disguised woman’s robe, his face was still bleeding, and half his cheek was swollen. This was probably the most pathetic moment of his life, and also the most magnificent.

Jun Changwei was silent for a long time.

Zuo Liangshi smiled. “My cultivation is the lowest among all the immortal sect masters. The only reason I can be this Pavilion Master is because of the contract between the Black Tortoise and the Zuo family… I can’t stir up the Cangming Sea completely on my own. I need help.”

“This deal of yours is quite a big one,” Jun Changwei said slowly.

“Can’t be helped. I can’t let Zhunan just be extinguished like this.” Zuo Liangshi stood up. “But tonight wasn’t really about doing business with you… Your Taiyi’s Little Martial Ancestor saved my son twice. Tonight, consider it me repaying that kindness.”

“Truly makes one see you in a new light,” Jun Changwei said sarcastically.

“I can’t just let my son not have a single friend. Throwing him around all these years has been unfair enough to him,” Zuo Liangshi said in a low voice.

“I still don’t trust you.”

Jun Changwei stood up, ready to leave the Tide-Watching Tower with his Gold-Inlaid Saber.

“But this time, I’ll help you.”

Zuo Liangshi smiled and tossed something to him. “Give this to your Little Martial Ancestor. Consider it a meeting gift.”

Jun Changwei caught it and looked. His brow twitched. “The Buddhist Sect’s `Brahma Purity Art`?”

“Let him cultivate it when he has time. It should help suppress the karmic obstruction a little. I say, you guys should at least keep an eye on his cultivation. He’s at the bottom of the Mind Illumination Stage… That’s not how you worship an ancestor… Forget it, I’m not qualified to say anything. I can’t do anything about that kid of mine either.” Zuo Liangshi showed a pained expression. “Day after day, he won’t cultivate no matter how I threaten or entice him.”

Jun Changwei shook his head and threw the jade slip back to him.

“It’s not that he won’t cultivate.” Jun Changwei slowly descended the tower. “It’s that he can’t.”

Zuo Liangshi was stunned.

He was about to ask more, but Jun Changwei had already stepped onto the surface of the Cangming Sea and left.

***

At the end of the Cangming Sea, the bright moon hung high.

Shi Wuluo lowered his head slightly and noticed a speck of blood on Chou Bodeng’s lips, so vibrant it was almost bewitching. He subconsciously reached out to touch it.

Just as the pad of his finger pressed against the soft lips, Chou Bodeng suddenly opened his eyes.