Chapter 81 – Releasing the Flood Dragon
Chou Bodeng’s fingers paused, then slowly curled into a fist. He looked away. Shi Wuluo said nothing, stubbornly waiting for his answer.
“Someone once asked me if I ever wondered why they presented such splendor before me, taking great pains to pave a path for me to save the world and its people,” Chou Bodeng said slowly. “They make me sound like some Bodhisattva feeding eagles with his own flesh. How ridiculous. Even if I were willing, the eagle would feel wronged. They just keep tossing rotten meat and decayed bones its way day after day.”
Shi Wuluo took his cold, stiff fingers.
“I saved the Divine Fu Tree because it was too stupid for my liking. I saved Ru City because I felt like it, and I wanted to see which bastard would dare to mess with me. As for Zhunan…” He suddenly laughed again. “I haven’t even eaten Zhunan’s Gold-Clad Fish yet. How could I let those ghoulish things ruin it?”
The sunlight shifted, piercing through the gap in the sheer curtain. A sliver of light cut across his pupils, splitting the world in two. Light and dark clashed, shadows and brilliance battled.
“See,” he was still smiling, “the common people have nothing to do with me.”
Shi Wuluo blocked that sliver of light, and Chou Bodeng stopped smiling.
He was quiet for a moment. “Let me tell you about a play.”
Shi Wuluo answered with a low hum.
“A very, very old cliché of a play,” Chou Bodeng said, sitting up and pressing his fingers against the mother-of-pearl inlaid bedframe. “A person… whether he starts as a playboy or a destitute stray, is chosen to be the superhero who saves the world. He’s destined to become a hero, destined to become a saint. How cliché is this play? So cliché that the audience knows the ending from the very beginning. So it doesn’t matter how many times the protagonist is knocked down in the middle; he’s guaranteed to be radiant in the end, with everyone standing up, cheering, and applauding.”
“A hero who saves the world, a benevolent man who turns the tide, a fated saint.”
“How grand.”
He didn’t mention the hysterical Moon Mother at all, as if he had completely forgotten her, as if he only saw her as some madwoman he had happened to encounter on the road.
“But the story only lasts for two hours.”
“How can a lifetime be told in a mere two hours?”
The silver screen freezes on the final moment, the heroes bathed in glory, surrounded by the adoring masses, the applause thunderous. But what comes after? What comes after?
“The most benevolent has no family, the most saintly has no friends.”
Chou Bodeng laughed, but as he did, he suddenly bent over, gripping the edge of the bed tightly, his back tensed like a string about to snap. In the blinding sunlight, the woman’s twisted, ferocious face, the sharp fingertips frozen before him, sharp feathered arrows from all directions—all of it was inescapable, even in a drunken stupor.
Just a sinner.
Where is the saint?!
Disaster and calamity followed wherever he went. He was a walking catastrophe, a walking curse. Dying alone at the bottom of the sea would be his greatest contribution to the world.
“I’ll take you away.”
Shi Wuluo pulled the slender-backed youth into his arms, as if shielding him from a sky full of arrows.
“It won’t be easy to take me away. Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
A single, simple word. It was like that night under the white moon on the Cangming Sea, rowing him to the water’s end, the sky’s divide, the mortal realm’s edge, taking him away from this world. Chou Bodeng looked over Shi Wuluo’s shoulder at the shadows of the crabapple blossoms outside the window, watching them grow across the cypress planks to the red lacquered frame, filtered through the white cotton curtain. The sunlight was radiant, as were the shadows of the flowers.
“Alright.”
For a moment, Shi Wuluo didn’t realize what he had heard. He froze for an instant, then turned his head. Chou Bodeng looked at his stunned, silver-gray eyes and blank expression, then suddenly laughed. He pushed him away, stood up, pulled back the screen, and stepped into the brilliant sunlight.
He stood barefoot in the daylight, his fingertips illuminated to a translucent brightness. He stared fixedly out the window at the flowers and shadows, the flying birds and the long wind.
“What do the common people have to do with me?” He turned with a brilliant smile. “I’m just a profligate, aren’t I? I have eighty-one relatives and dissolute companions from all corners of the world. I eat, drink, and make merry, stopping at no evil. What does being a saint have to do with a degenerate like me?”
He cheered up, his eyes and brows filled with brightness, like a genuine eighteen-year-old youth, heedless of heaven or earth.
“Let’s go.”
“Take me away.”
He stood his ground and held out his hand to Shi Wuluo.
Shi Wuluo grasped his hand and, with a flick of his sleeve, threw the doors open. A strong wind billowed out, instantly sweeping through the surroundings. Among the flowering shrubs, all the seemingly inconspicuous Scout Birds dropped to the ground at once. The wind swept over most of the Nine Cities of Zhunan, and from all directions, every prying, watching gaze was severed. The nearest spies were annihilated in an instant.
Sabers, swords, spears, and halberds rose from all sides as hidden figures leaped out, attempting to block their departure. They came from various sects and factions, from every continent and island.
Seven days ago, all the immortal sect disciples and island merchants stationed in Zhunan had simultaneously received a secret order to monitor and control. It was an unprecedented directive: disregard the prestigious Taiyi Sect, the number one immortal sect, and disregard the host, the Mountain Sea Pavilion. If Chou Bodeng of Taiyi showed any sign of escaping, they were to obstruct him with all their might and report immediately.
In just seven short days, forces from all directions had turned Zhunan into a cage.
The flash of a saber spun into a full moon. Weapons shattered, and figures were sent flying backward. Shi Wuluo shook the blood from his scarlet saber, tightened his grip on Chou Bodeng’s hand, and led him soaring across the long street. In the daylight, a dying spy saw the target of his sect’s intense surveillance clearly for the first time in seven days. Unexpectedly, it wasn’t the grim, terrifying evil demon he had imagined, but a cold young man and a stunningly beautiful youth.
Their fingers were intertwined as they broke free from the cage of heaven and earth.
The four directions trembled. In less than two hours, the news spread from Zhunan, instantly reaching the Kongsang Hundred Clans, every immortal sect in the Twelve Continents, and the Thirty-Six Overseas Islands. Countless flying boats took to the sky, carrying different schemes as they began to cast a net across the firmament.
***
Old Heavenly Craftsman kicked open Jun Changwei’s door, snatched his wine jar, and grabbed him by the collar, hauling him to his feet. “Why didn’t you tell me the person with him was that madman Shi Wuluo?!” he roared. “You… you bastard, you didn’t even keep an eye on them yourself?!”
“How was I supposed to watch them?”
Jun Changwei asked calmly, spreading his hands.
“I’m neither a ghost nor a god. How could I possibly beat him?”
Fire practically shot from Old Heavenly Craftsman’s eyes. “Then you should have told me! The Heavenly Works Mansion is closest to the Mountain Sea Pavilion. I could have definitely made it here within seven days.”
“And what would you have done if you’d made it?” Jun Changwei retorted. “Kept him under lock and key? Stopped him from taking away my Taiyi Sect’s Little Martial Ancestor? We at Taiyi haven’t even tried to break up the happy couple, so why are you sticking your nose in?”
Old Heavenly Craftsman stared at him for a moment.
“Your Taiyi Sect planned to let him go all along… The Eighty-one Peaks of Taiyi never came to attend the Immortal-Demon Alliance Meeting,” Old Heavenly Craftsman said, releasing his collar. “You came here to fight from the very beginning.”
“Yes.”
Jun Changwei didn’t deny it.
“Shi Wuluo is a madman, and you’re all going to follow him into madness?” Old Heavenly Craftsman asked. “Does your Taiyi Sect really intend to become the second Witch Clan? Yes, ten thousand years of immortal sects, and Taiyi is first, that’s true. But back then, the Witch Clan was even more stubborn than your Taiyi Sect is now. And look at them now! Besides Shi Wuluo, what other member of the Witch Clan can take a single step out of the Southern Borderlands?”
“I’ve said it before,” Jun Changwei said, sitting down cross-legged. “The Taiyi Sect has long been prepared to become the world’s number one evil sect.”
“Don’t be naive!” Old Heavenly Craftsman hissed. “Don’t forget why your Taiyi Sect was able to escort that coffin east back then! It was because of the pact between the immortal sects and the Thirty-Six Islands! It was because the Witch Clan forced their hand with a bloody battle! Now that he’s slipped from the immortal sects’ sight, that pact is void!”
He paused, staring into Jun Changwei’s eyes.
“Eighteen years ago, when your Taiyi Sect and the Witch Clan reshaped his body, the Thirty-Six Islands nearly returned to the continents. It was the pact that held them back. Now that the pact is void, how do you plan to stop them?”
“The Thirty-Six Islands… my Eighty-one Peaks of Taiyi can always hold them back.”
“You!” Old Heavenly Craftsman’s eyes widened. “You’re all a bunch of fools. Do you really think it’s a good thing that he’s gone? Can Shi Wuluo truly protect him?”
“And staying in Zhunan would be a good thing?” Jun Changwei countered. “He severed the Heaven-Herding Rope of the first Golden Crow Bird. Kongsang, Heaven Beyond Heavens, the Thirty-Six Overseas Islands—everyone hiding in the shadows knows he’s back. Those who want to kill him will swarm in like endless schools of fish. Should we have left him at the Immortal-Demon Alliance Meeting to be a target for everyone to attack? Left him to witness the ungrateful faces of a crowd of people? Or left him to watch a group of self-proclaimed righteous individuals use the common people as a banner to weigh their options and force a choice? Why don’t you just say we should have let the Taiyi Sword escort that coffin down Fufeng Road one more time!”
He had never been good at strategic debate, but he became exceptionally aggressive when speaking of these secrets buried in dust.
Old Heavenly Craftsman took two steps back and opened his mouth, but said nothing for a long time.
Old Heavenly Craftsman slowly sat down and picked up the wine jar from the floor. “Regarding the Immortal-Demon Alliance Meeting, I can’t guarantee the Heavenly Works Mansion’s stance, but for Xie Yuan’s matter, we owe your Taiyi Sect a favor. At worst, we’ll remain neutral. The Mountain Sea Pavilion just suffered a heavy blow and has declared war on Kongsang, so you’d best act with them. Don’t just turn hostile and start a fight. Remember that Kongsang was the one who secretly altered the sun and moon, throwing the celestial orbits into disarray first. Don’t be foolish enough to let them shift the focus…”
“You’re so long-winded.”
Jun Changwei stretched out his arm to take back his wine.
Old Heavenly Craftsman glared at him and moved the wine away. “Drinking while heavily injured? If you don’t want your Saber Bone, you can just carve it out for me.”
Jun Changwei sullenly retracted his hand.
Old Heavenly Craftsman gulped down the rest of the wine and tossed the jar out the window. “I just ran into Tao Rong. He asked me to give you this, which Zuo Liangshi left behind.”
He handed a letter to Jun Changwei.
Jun Changwei broke the seal, pulled out a sheet of paper covered in writing, and read it for a moment. A look of astonishment appeared on his face.
“What is it?” Old Heavenly Craftsman asked. “What did that treacherous merchant say?”
“The Moon Mother personally experienced the establishment of the Four Poles and the setting of the eight directions during the Primeval Era,” Jun Changwei said, looking up at him. “She was likely one of the people who followed him to build the Four Poles. She and the Scripture Woman didn’t go to the Heaven Beyond Heavens because they stayed behind to guard the Vicious Plow Earth-Mound. There’s one more thing… Zuo Liangshi suspects that when they were guarding the Northeast Corner, their entire clan was already dead.”
“Dead?”
Old Heavenly Craftsman frowned.
“That’s the strangest part,” Jun Changwei said in a low voice. “When I went to the Vicious Plow Earth-Mound last time, I did see that the people there had all become walking corpses. I thought it was because they had taken the Yuan Bird away and were thus corroded by the malevolent aura. If their clansmen were all dead from the very beginning, then for tens of thousands of years, they’ve been guarding… a land of the dead.”
“I also went to the Vicious Plow Earth-Mound a hundred years ago,” Old Heavenly Craftsman retorted. “The village there was normal back then.”
Jun Changwei was silent for a moment.
“An illusion,” he said. “The Moon Mother and the others are ancient gods. A god’s obsession can be so strong that it can evolve into an illusory world. For them and for those not powerful enough, an illusory world is no different from reality.” He paused slightly here, as if he had thought of something but didn’t elaborate. “Someone broke their illusory world, waking them from the illusion… Perhaps it was the White Emperor. But there’s a problem…”
“Who killed their clansmen?” Old Heavenly Craftsman picked up the thread. “From the Moon Mother’s reaction, it seems like it was him.”
“He killed them? Do you believe that?” Jun Changwei asked.
Old Heavenly Craftsman shook his head without hesitation.
The two were silent for a moment.
“Old Ghost Jun,” Old Heavenly Craftsman murmured, “if he hadn’t gone mad in the end, would things have been different? At least, there wouldn’t be so many unanswered questions.”
Jun Changwei didn’t speak.
Many questions remained unanswered to this day.
“Forget it. It’s good that Shi Wuluo took him away. At least he won’t be a pawn. But where can he go? Can he leave the mortal realm? Can he leap beyond the heavens? The world is vast, but where can he possibly go?”
“To the ends of the earth, to the vast mountains and rivers.”
Jun Changwei stood up and opened the door. Sunlight poured in, illuminating the crabapple blossoms in full bloom in the courtyard.
“He can go wherever he wants.”