Chapter 38 – I Have a White Blade to Avenge Injustice
“So, do you want to save it?”
The golden sun fell, dark clouds pressed down on the city, the Red Ru became mere shadows, and the rice paddies were submerged by miasma. The people of the city were worn down by hardship and anxiety… With a wave of Huai Ningjun’s sleeve, a hundred years flowed by, and a vibrant city turned gray and bleak.
Chou Bodeng stood in the depths of time, his sleeves fluttering.
“Great suffering, great sorrow, life, death, and decay,” he watched as the miasma fog submerged the fertile fields like a tide, driving people to their wit’s end like wild beasts. “You ask if I want to save it… You make me sound like some peerless hero, waking up with a halo of world-saving. If I want to save it, can I?”
“Yes.”
Huai Ningjun said faintly.
“You can save it.”
“Why?”
“For thousands of years, the Golden Crow and the Mysterious Rabbit have followed their prescribed orbits in the azure sky year after year. The ten suns and the nether moon intersect at a single point. Someone extracted that point and forged it into the key of time, a key that can control the rising of the sun and the setting of the moon.” Huai Ningjun stood with his hands behind his back. The city gate closed behind him, and copper rust crept over the ancient beast-head rings. “You hold that key. As long as you are willing, you can make the sun rise in Ru City.”
He stared into Chou Bodeng’s eyes, not missing the slightest change in his expression.
This had been his speculation all along.
He suspected that, besides the Hundred Clans, there was one other person in this world who could control the movements of the sun and moon.
Could that person be Chou Bodeng?
“You’ve misunderstood,” Chou Bodeng said politely. The shadow of the sun shifted behind him, his white robes fluttering like a deity standing in the rising sun, or like a demon bursting forth from it. “I was asking, why should I save this city?”
A flicker of surprise crossed Huai Ningjun’s face.
He seemed to have never expected Chou Bodeng to ask such a question.
“Why should I save a city that…” Chou Bodeng slowly added, explaining with great patience, “is trying to kill me?”
The Golden Crow fell with a crash, and darkness spread like a tide.
The moment the sun fell, Huai Ningjun drew his sword. The cold blade left its sheath by a mere thirty centimeters, its clear light like snow, the sword’s cry like a phoenix, its cold shriek echoing through heaven and earth. The phantom of a White Phoenix rose behind him, spreading its wings dozens of meters wide, every slender feather containing an imposing aura.
Half the city was illuminated as if it were day.
“It seems this is the ‘old friends reunite and draw blades on each other’ script after all.”
The moment Huai Ningjun drew his sword, Chou Bodeng retreated like a ghost. A deep, unfathomable chasm split open from where Huai Ningjun stood, cleaving the entire long street and extending to less than three centimeters from Chou Bodeng.
“You were not entranced by the illusion.”
Huai Ningjun said.
“I was at first,” Chou Bodeng said, standing at the divide between day and night. “But a person who has had their Life Scale dotted is a roaming fish. How can a fish be entranced by water?”
The Life Scale at the corner of his eye was vibrant, like a flame.
A flame that burned away the darkness.
At first, countless red fireflies rose from the ground, numbering in the hundreds of millions. Soon, the sparks caught the wind and swelled, transforming into roaming fish that swam through the sky! They gathered in schools, like the long rainbows that followed the passing of the Miasma Moon a hundred years ago, driving out the darkness! Igniting it!
They broke through the formation and gathered behind one person.
“I see,” Huai Ningjun turned his wrist, gripping his sword hilt. “From the first day you set foot in Ru City, you knew this city wanted to kill you.”
“That’s right.”
Chou Bodeng answered frankly.
Zhou Ziyan had forgotten one thing.
Or perhaps it wasn’t that he had forgotten, but that those who walk a crooked path cannot see any other way.
The day Chou Bodeng entered the city, the school of Ru fish had circled and roamed the sky, just to illuminate his eyes… That was not killing intent; it was a grand welcome.
This city held no secrets from Chou Bodeng.
The Ru fish, born of the heaven and earth’s water vapor, had gently touched his fingertips, tugged at his sleeves, guided him through the labyrinthine City Divination Department, shown him the deliberately destroyed teleportation array, and pulled him by the sleeve through the streets and alleys, bringing the low whispers to his ears…
Finally, they had asked him to leave.
They asked him to leave before this city was stained with the blood of an innocent.
They asked him to leave before the children made an irreversible mistake.
When is a person happiest?
When they are still a child.
Because no matter what you do, there are elders standing behind you. If you walk a crooked path, they will do everything in their power to pull you back. If you cause a great disaster, they will do their utmost to bear the consequences. Through all the storms of the world, as long as the people behind you have not completely fallen, they will never watch you trudge through thorns.
Just like the old men of the Chou Clan in his previous life, who would always make arrangements everywhere before he went out to show off, and who would do their best to cover for him after he caused trouble. Just like the Ru fish who urged him to leave.
The ones you thought had left have, in fact, never left.
“Since you knew he wanted to kill you,” Huai Ningjun slowly drew his sword, inch by inch, “you still dared to lend him your sword? Don’t you regret your kindness being betrayed?”
“His betrayal is his business. Lending him my sword is my business.”
Chou Bodeng stood at the end of the long street, his sleeves flying.
The White Phoenix and the school of Ru faced off. Chou Bodeng and Huai Ningjun faced off.
Between heaven and earth, there was no one else but them. Behind them was a clearly divided Ru City, as if leading to two completely different fates.
“I’m really curious about one thing now,” Chou Bodeng said. “You want to kill me, is it just for that key?”
—Or is it to throw the entire Qingzhou into chaos?
It was only after seeing Shi Wuluo’s avatar become faint that Chou Bodeng had grasped this matter.
In the early stages of the Chronicles of the Gods, Ye Cang was just an ordinary Taiyi disciple. The main plot involved him passing one minor test every three days and one major test every five days within the sect, leveling up to become a top student. After becoming the chief disciple, the war of the Twelve Continents broke out, and Ye Cang was ordered to lead the masses onto the battlefield. Ye Cang’s strength was too insignificant. In his perception, the outbreak of the war was without warning, as if it were a coincidence.
There is no “coincidence” in war.
Before the blades and soldiers rise, there must be countless carefully prepared foreshadowings. Moreover, it was not a simple conflict between continents or between Immortal Sects, but a sea of blood that swept across the entire land… If the foreshadowing for this sea of blood was now?
To cross south and attack the Witch Clan, Kongsang asked to borrow a path from the Mountain Sea Pavilion. The Mountain Sea Pavilion weighed the pros and cons and agreed to the Hundred Clans’ request. Against the backdrop of the Hundred Clans borrowing a path from the Mountain Sea Pavilion, if he died in Ru City—a city whose sun and moon had once been altered by the Taiyu Clan of Kongsang—then, considering the old grudges between Taiyi and the Hundred Clans, his death would undoubtedly force Taiyi to confront Kongsang once again.
And the Witch Clan, especially a certain person.
Would go completely insane, right?
…At the same time, if the Young Pavilion Master of the Medicine Valley and the Buddhist Saint of the Buddhist Sect died in Qingzhou, what would the Medicine Valley and the Buddhist Sect do? Would they raise an army against the Mountain Sea Pavilion to demand justice? And would the Mountain Sea Pavilion, whose own Young Pavilion Master also died in Ru City, be able to suppress its anger and calmly prove its innocence?
Even if this matter was eventually resolved, the seeds of resentment would have been sown.
This was the first time Chou Bodeng had discovered that this little life of his, which he didn’t take seriously, was actually so important. He imagined that Zuo Yuesheng and the others would be dumbfounded to learn that a profligate could actually change history.
In the future, storytellers could even have a segment called “A Profligate Dies in Ru City, and War Erupts in Qingzhou.”
Chou Bodeng was genuinely curious who had come up with such an absurd plot.
So curious that he was willing to enter the formation to see for himself.
“I don’t want to kill you. The person who wanted to kill you has been sent back by me.” Huai Ningjun lowered his sword. “You are not my opponent right now. Give me the key, and I will leave.”
“Oh.” Chou Bodeng responded nonchalantly. “You sound like a good person. Should I thank you? What a pity. Compared to a true villain, I despise a hypocrite more. You’ve already drawn your sword, what are you still pretending for?”
“Then who do you think is a good person?”
Huai Ningjun asked in return.
“Taiyi? The Mountain Sea Pavilion? Taiyi supported you for over a decade, why didn’t they tell you the truth? Elder Jun of Taiyi clearly arrived in Qingzhou long ago, why didn’t he come to pick you up himself, and instead had someone from the Mountain Sea Pavilion do it? The City Diviner of Ru City who wants to kill you is Elder Tao’s disciple. Do you think the Mountain Sea Pavilion is truly unaware, or do they also want to use this matter to test you?”
“It sounds like I’m some peerless great demon, bringing bloodshed and chaos wherever I go,” Chou Bodeng commented. “Not bad, quite cool.”
“I know you suspect me,” Huai Ningjun smiled. “But have you ever considered one thing?”
“From Fu City to Ru City, every step you’ve taken seems to have been carefully arranged for you. They let you see beauty and sorrow, they let you save plants and watch fireworks, they present prosperity to you and then tear it to shreds, and then they tell you that those who want to kill you, harm you, save you, and like you, all have their profound reasons.”
“Don’t you find it laughable?” Huai Ningjun asked softly. “To go to such lengths to cover it up, to take such pains to guide you onto the path of saving the world?”
The Taiyi who wanted to slay the demon but never truly struck.
The old green wood burning in the heavenly fire.
The Ru fish roaming in the darkness.
…
Chou Bodeng’s face was expressionless.
The White Phoenix stood silently.
Huai Ningjun’s gaze seemed to pass through a long expanse of time, watching one play after another begin and end. He had lied about one thing… he had brought the silver paste and red grease. After watching plays for so long, one occasionally develops some subtle feelings for the characters in them.
If you are willing, I can take you away.
He waited for Chou Bodeng’s answer.
“What nonsense are you talking about.”
Chou Bodeng laughed coldly.
“I saved Fu City because I didn’t like it. I lent my sword because I was happy to. I entered the formation because I wanted to see which bastard dared to use me as a pawn. Do you really think that by bringing up the common people, by bringing up how many people will die, you can order me around?”
“You’re overthinking it.”
The myriad beings, their sorrows and sufferings.
How many uncertainties and helplessness in the world, he didn’t care.
He wanted to do it, so he did it.
“What I do…” Chou Bodeng raised his eyes, “is because I want to!”
He suddenly spread his arms, and the Red Ru erupted from behind him like a torrent of magma, fearlessly meeting the shrieking divine phoenix. A single Ru fish was but a firefly, but when hundreds of millions gathered, they were enough to ignite heaven and earth!
“Taiyi!”
The twelve copper chains snapped in unison.
Taiyi broke free from its case!
Chou Bodeng reached out, drew his sword from the stream of fire, and shot out. In an instant, he had crossed the long street, the sword’s light leaving a sharp afterimage. He sang out, his voice wild and untamed, even overpowering the cry of the White Phoenix that echoed through the heavens. The whole world was a raging wind, and in the wind was only his wildness, his untamable spirit, his utter disregard for everything.
“I have tens of thousands of gold to spare.”
Scarlet flames billowed up from the hem of Chou Bodeng’s robe, and in an instant, his white clothes became fire.
“I have a white blade—”
He leaped into the air.
“To avenge injustice!”