Chapter 48: …tears fell like rain.
Liao Chen held him.
Still separated by a layer of spiritual energy.
He knew he had to quickly find a suitable place to settle Yan Jingyu down. He knew he should treat his injuries as soon as possible, as soon as possible, without delay.
If he had enough time, he could go and get the spiritual medicines he had taken a hundred years later again. As long as he could repair his body, as long as he could repair his body completely, he wouldn’t have to worry about the divine wood affecting his absorption of the spiritual medicines.
His plan was good, but he had never thought that after a few steps, he would meet a person.
“I didn’t expect it to be you.”
Liao Chen stopped, looking at the old man with a square face and white beard and hair in front of him. Du Fang and ‘Lian Feng’ both slowly lifted, pointing their tips at the other.
“He is a child of Hutian.” The other shook his head. “I didn’t come to harm you.”
“You still have the face to say…”
“I cannot go against the rules for him.” The Grand Ancestor of Hutian paused. “You have fallen from your realm. If this continues, you won’t be able to protect him.”
“They cannot directly target mortals, only arrange things through the rules.”
“He is not a mortal.” The Grand Ancestor sighed. “A person born with the authority of the Heavenly Mandate, how could he be an ordinary mortal?”
“What on earth are you trying to say?!”
“Have you not discovered it yet?” the old man said. “His lamp wick has been dug out. If it is not repaired in time, his soul will be scattered and annihilated within three days, completely returning to the ruins.”
Liao Chen’s whole body trembled, his face pale. When Ruan Qingwan was here, he was also enduring the heavenly tribulation. Even though he had tried his best to stare at the other, he still hadn’t seen it, that his lamp wick had been dug out…
Ruan Qingwan, she really wanted him to die.
“You can no longer withstand the divine tribulation.” The old man said, “If you kill people here, the rules can immediately attract a divine tribulation to destroy you.”
Liao Chen forcefully suppressed his killing intent. “The lamp wick, where do I go to find a lamp wick now?!”
His face was extremely ugly. He didn’t know that Yan Jingyu’s lamp wick had also been dug out before. Yan Jingyu hadn’t told him about this, or, he himself didn’t know that he had experienced such a thing…
The Grand Ancestor slowly stretched out his hand. In his palm was an object like a broken fava bean. Liao Chen suddenly took a few steps forward, then cautiously stopped. He held Yan Jingyu. “What are the conditions?”
“No conditions.” The Grand Ancestor said, “I told you, he is a child of Hutian. But his physical body is destroyed, and his lamp wick is difficult to continue. Now, he must find a new body to be able to resettle the soul-lamp.”
Liao Chen stared at the lamp wick in his hand, his expression still filled with distrust. He struggled to understand the other’s meaning. After a long while, he said, “There are so many people in Hutian. Just killing one should be enough, right?”
His expression was calm, as if he were just narrating an ordinary, couldn’t-be-more-ordinary matter.
But the Grand Ancestor shook his head again. “Ordinary people are fine. He is not.”
“Why?!”
“Ordinary people, after returning to the ruins, will dissolve into all things and enter the sea of consciousness to fight and devour. The successful ones will obtain the origin power and return to the mortal world. But his return to the ruins does not enter the sea of consciousness. He is a child of the laws and needs an absolutely compatible physical body to be reborn. Otherwise, why is there only one Yan Jingyu in this world?”
“…Then what kind of body can accommodate his soul-lamp?”
His eyes revealed vigilance, coldness, and also doubt and inquiry.
“Now, the only thing that can be compatible with his soul-lamp is the Wutong divine wood of the phoenix clan.”
In that instant, Liao Chen suddenly seemed to have realized something.
He finally understood why Yan Jingyu was clearly unrecognizable, yet he still recognized him at a glance. He had seen his own mark in his soul-lamp… it wasn’t the one he had struck when he forced Yan Jingyu to kill Qin Zhongyou, but a very clear mark. Someone had told him that that was Yan Jingyu.
He had never known who it was. Not until this moment did he vaguely understand something…
His face grew paler, but his tone was still calm. “I don’t believe it.”
I don’t believe that all of this is just a closed loop. I have already returned. I cannot let him walk the same path again. I absolutely will not, absolutely will not allow it, absolutely will not accept it. I have made so many efforts, and in the end, I have only bought him eight months…
Nothing has changed, nothing, has changed…
The stars turned, time flowed, and a hundred years passed in a flash.
The small courtyard of Cangmu Mountain welcomed another autumn. He stood behind the other, looking at the calm and gentle, but uniquely not so stunningly handsome, Yan Jingyu, who had been recognized and knocked out by him at a glance in Hutian City one hundred and thirty-three years ago, and who would soon meet the self that he didn’t know whether to call the past or the future.
“Your soul-lamp…”
The other looked around blankly. His voice was hoarse. “…is about to be extinguished…”
He had accompanied him for one hundred and thirty-three years. He finally understood why Yan Jingyu had become like that. He had never thought that the one who had brought him to Cangmu Mountain would be himself, that the one who had turned him into a waste would be himself, that the one who had made everything turn out the way it did in the end would be himself…
In these one hundred and thirty-three years, he had watched him try again and again, fail again and again. Until yesterday, he was still trying hard to contend with himself.
The future self was forcing him to cultivate, but the current Liao Chen only hoped that he could let go of everything and never touch the immortal path again.
After losing his talent, this path was, originally, so bitter.
The autumn leaves rustled. Liao Chen heard himself speak again. “What do you want to do next?”
He already had the answer in his heart.
He watched as Yan Jingyu reached out his hand, watched the falling leaves in the air, some green, some yellow, watched as one brushed past his fingertips and fell to the ground, landing at the base of the tree.
Fallen leaves return to their roots.
He said, “I miss home.”
After a moment, he asked again, “And you?”
“I… miss him.”
Yan Jingyu only remembered that he had been knocked out by Liao Chen.
He had just opened his eyes on the spiritual bed when he was hit by Liao Chen.
In that instant, he felt as if he had returned to many, many years ago, to the moment when he was like in a cage, with all five senses gone.
But he suddenly heard someone calling him: “Yan Jingyu—!”
The voice was incomparably familiar, very much like Liao Chen’s. Yet it wasn’t that similar. The Liao Chen in his impression would not be so desperate. There was nothing that could force him to the point of screaming his lungs out.
He wasn’t sure, but he still subconsciously grabbed at the void.
Then he suddenly woke up from the bed.
He reflexively looked down at his own body.
His sleeping clothes were thin, the bed curtains deep. But his breathing was a little ragged. He inexplicably fumbled around his body, always feeling that he had experienced something terrible in that instant.
There was no one beside him…
Yan Jingyu lifted the bed curtains and got out of bed, poking his head around to search for Liao Chen in the Suixing Hall. He didn’t see the other’s figure anywhere, so he went back and patted the blood beast’s head, whispering, “Where is your first master?”
The blood beast swayed its tail and looked up.
“?”
Yan Jingyu hesitated, then wrapped himself in a cloak and slowly walked out of the Suixing Hall. He took one step, two steps, three steps in the courtyard… After a certain distance, he looked up and, as expected, saw the man in black, sitting quietly on the roof, looking up at the starry sky.
Recently, it had been snowing fine snow. Often, after a night, there would only be a layer of white frost on the ground. When the sun came out, even that layer of white frost could no longer be seen.
Yan Jingyu wasn’t sure how many days he had slept, only that the starry sky today was very bright, exceptionally bright, as if it had been washed with water.
His mood suddenly also became bright. He turned his face to look at Liao Chen again and opened his arms. “Hey, get me up there!”
His eyes were also bright, with a hint of unconscious pride and a probing look as if he were deliberately trying to get attention. Liao Chen lowered his eyes and met his gaze. Yan Jingyu tilted his head uncompromisingly, his voice fierce. “Hurry up!”
The man sitting on the roof stretched out his hand.
Yan Jingyu’s toes immediately left the ground. He took a step and walked lightly onto the roof, sitting down beside Liao Chen with a plop.
Besides the noise he made, Liao Chen was always as quiet as if he were dead.
Yan Jingyu swayed and looked at the sky for a while, but his gaze was unconsciously drawn to the uncharacteristically quiet Liao Chen at this moment.
He changed his posture, first resting his hands on his knees, supporting his chin, then stretching out his legs, kicking the tiles on the roof, deliberately making the tiles shake and clatter. Then he bent his legs, pressed his hands on them, and tilted his head to look at Liao Chen.
But he still didn’t hear a single sound from the other.
Liao Chen was just dazed, calm, as if all his energy had been drained.
“Is that the Big Dipper?”
He suddenly pointed his hand. Liao Chen reacted for a moment, followed his finger to look, and said, “No.”
He did not ask Yan Jingyu how he could not recognize the constellations. Yan Jingyu pursed his lips. “Is it the Southern Dipper?”
“It is Wangshu Star.” Liao Chen looked at the sky, his voice gentle. “It always revolves around the moon. Sometimes when there is no moon in the sky, you can determine the position of the moon by seeing it. It has the effect of nourishing the yin spirit and calming the mind.”
He remembered the countless midnights, the immortal lord who had walked out of the jade coffin. He had his long hair loose, sat in the courtyard, his voice very light. “I have a water and wood dual-element spiritual root. Wangshu Star can help me speed up my spiritual energy absorption. I didn’t succeed before, it must be because I didn’t use Wangshu. From now on, I will bathe in this star every night. I will definitely succeed.”
Yan Jingyu withdrew his hand, unable to help but laugh. “I didn’t expect you to even know these things.”
Liao Chen looked at the star and did not speak again.
Yan Jingyu felt that he had changed a lot. He was clearly still the same person, but for some reason, he had just woken up from a sleep, yet the other’s eyes seemed to have experienced countless vicissitudes of life.
He was a little confused, but he didn’t know how to ask, so he could only look at the stars again.
The wind brushed past him. Yan Jingyu unconsciously shrank his neck. The next instant, a familiar black cloak immediately fell on him. The cloak was too heavy. Yan Jingyu deliberately only pulled one side, the shoulder on Liao Chen’s side. The cloak slid down from above.
Liao Chen reached out his hand and gently pulled it up for him. Yan Jingyu, as if he had just realized it, obediently reached out and held it himself.
He vaguely understood what Liao Chen was thinking.
But he didn’t know what he should say…
The Purple Flame Fruit and the Exquisite Ginseng were refined into pills with his help. He knew too well the effect of that thing.
Eight months was the limit… could it be that the immortal physicians had made a mistake when they were merging it with the soul-lamp, and there was only a month left?
Sigh, actually, Liao Chen isn’t necessarily so depressed because of his affairs. Even if he were to die in front of Liao Chen tomorrow, Liao Chen wouldn’t possibly show such an expression as if the sky had fallen. After all, he is the ever-unyielding Liao Qi Mei.
“Ahem.” Yan Jingyu pulled at the collars on both sides again, hesitated for a long time, then suddenly smiled, nudged Liao Chen’s shoulder with his, and said, “Aiya, why are you so unhappy? It can’t be because I’m really about to die, can it?”
Liao Chen did not move, his expression wooden and calm.
“Xiao Mei.” Yan Jingyu put on a cheeky look, tutted and shook his head. “I’m really dying. You should stop wasting your effort. Although I also know that you must be very, very, very reluctant to let me go…”
Yan Jingyu’s voice came to an abrupt halt.
He looked at Liao Chen. The latter was slowly lowering his head, his long, dark eyelashes and his back going down together, as if a thousand-jun weight had fallen on him.
He couldn’t breathe, and he trembled slightly.
Tears fell like rain.
The water-washed stars were silently covered with a thin mist. Yan Jingyu reacted for a long time before he reached out his hand in a fluster. “That, that, I, I was just kidding. Liao Chen, I, I know I’m not worthy… you, don’t, don’t…”
Liao Chen just pressed his head lower, his one hand covering his eyes, his shoulders trembling, his sobs coming one after another.
“That, I, I swear, I, that, within eight months, I will definitely, definitely be able to draw in spiritual energy, return to my peak, I will definitely be able to fight you. Don’t, don’t…”
Yan Jingyu’s voice grew smaller and smaller. “Don’t be like this…”
A fine drizzle, like a mist, enveloped the entire Demon Palace.
Yan Jingyu’s hair was soon stained with wet water vapor. Not until Liao Chen’s hair was also stained with fine water vapor did he belatedly come back to his senses.
He took out a rain umbrella from his storage ring and gently held it over him.
On the roof, Yan Jingyu slowly reached out his hand and stroked the top of his head. He didn’t know how long Liao Chen had been suppressing it. He didn’t understand why he looked so pained, so wronged, so annoyed, so powerless…
But Liao Chen seemed to have really broken down. He suddenly reached out and hugged his waist.
He buried his face in his chest.
The fine drizzle made the umbrella wet, but there was no loud sound of rain.
He didn’t know how long had passed. They returned to the Suixing Hall. Liao Chen stood there, lost in thought, his hair and face equally wet.
Yan Jingyu took a towel, pressed it on his head, and pulled him to sit on the small couch, gently wiping his head for him, and then slowly took a corner of the towel to wipe his pale cheeks.
His eyelids were red, his expression dazed, dejected, but the pupils in his eyes looked even darker, deep and desolate, yet a little empty.
Yan Jingyu sat beside him and held his face. Liao Chen was quietly held by him. He looked at Yan Jingyu, and his just-dried eyes seemed to be about to overflow with crystals again.
“…Alright.” Yan Jingyu used his finger to wipe away his tears. “Didn’t I promise you? I’ll practice my sword properly tomorrow. I’ll practice however you want me to. I promise, for the rest of the time, I’ll definitely beat you until you scream.”
Liao Chen did not speak.
He was not like Yan Jingyu. When he cried, his nose and cheeks would not turn red. After he cried, his eyes were red, his lips were red, but his usually firm yet handsome face was still a porcelain white. To be precise, under the contrast of the red, his skin was faintly tinged with a paleness, not a pitiful weakness, but it inexplicably made one feel a little…
Yan Jingyu moved his gaze away from his lips and lowered his head to wipe his hands. His fingers slowly stroked his palm. “How much time do I have left?”
“…Eight months.”
Yan Jingyu suddenly looked up, his expression a little pleasantly surprised. “So long?”
Meeting Liao Chen’s eyes, he coughed softly. “It’s a little short, but me, you know, I’m the one chosen by fate, I’m the one of the rules…”
“You are not the one chosen by fate.”
Yan Jingyu looked at him. Liao Chen looked as if he were about to cry again, his voice hoarse. “Yan Jingyu, you are just an unlucky sod. You are just a, pitiful creature… Which person chosen by fate is as difficult and arduous as you? Which person chosen by fate is as short-lived and ill-fated as you…”
Yan Jingyu smiled. “Why are you suddenly so indignant for me…”
Liao Chen’s lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but the corners of his eyes were wet again.
Yan Jingyu immediately reached out and wiped them for him. “There are still eight months. Eight months… don’t cry. What on earth is wrong with you? Clearly, it was a success, yet you seem to have been greatly hit… you think eight months is too short, you don’t believe I can ascend to immortality, hmm?”
“Do you have a way to ascend to immortality?”
“…Not for now.” Yan Jingyu said, “But I will work hard!”
Liao Chen thought again of him constantly forming seals in the jade coffin, constantly changing his hand gestures, his location, and the secret manuals and cultivation techniques in front of him changing one after another.
He remembered his breakdown in the middle of the night, remembered him covering his face and bending his back helplessly. He remembered the days and nights he had spent with him…
He had known from the beginning what would happen if he used the divine wood to cast a body for him.
He had gone from not believing, to resisting, to tentatively asking for his opinion…
“Now, there is only one way to save you…”
“Save me.” He remembered the other tightly holding his fingers. He had clearly lost all five senses. Liao Chen could only talk to him by transmitting his voice to his spiritual platform, but he had held his hand tightly. “Benefactor, please save me, save me. No matter what, I want to live. Let me live. I want to live…”
He was silent. But Yan Jingyu was particularly sensitive because he had lost his five senses. He kept fumbling up his sleeve, and he didn’t know if he realized that he might not be holding a living person. He started to let go and went to touch the jade coffin on the side. He didn’t know what it felt like. He only knew that the thing was blocking him. He said to the jade coffin, “Save me, benefactor…”
He looked around. “Save me, please save me…”
“Save me, I beg you, save me… I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I still have to save my mother. I have to save my senior sister. I have to find, find Zhongyou. I still have a deep blood feud… Save me. I still have many things to do. I will repay you…”
He wandered around the room, looking for his benefactor everywhere. “I am a child of fate. They all say I am a child of fate. I am Yan Jingyu. I, my aptitude, I will definitely be able to ascend to immortality. Save me. I will not let you lose. Save me. I beg you, save me. Give me a way to live… I am Yan Jingyu. I am Yan Jingyu of Hutian, Yaoguang Valley. I was at the Phoenix-Beginning stage at three, the Zither-Heart stage at five, and the Cloud-Soaring Realm at eight. As long as you give me a chance, I will definitely be able to ascend to immortality. I will definitely ascend to immortality!”
“Benefactor, save me, benefactor…”
He knelt there, kowtowing left and right, constantly pleading, “Save me, save me. I want to live. Let me live. Save me…”
He had picked him up. He knew that he didn’t know he was being held. He was still shouting, until he transmitted his voice again and told him, “Alright, I will save you.”
He had quieted down and was obediently placed in the jade coffin.
The Grand Ancestor of Hutian had said that he would have his soul scattered and annihilated within three days, but Liao Chen had used the jade coffin to buy himself seven days.
Seven days, he had constantly been looking for all kinds of physical bodies. Just as the Grand Ancestor had said, it was useless. Not a single physical body could accommodate his soul-lamp.
He stood there, holding the piece of divine wood, and asked the old man, “Is he really a child of fate?”
“To be able to live is to be a child of fate.” The Grand Ancestor’s tone was calm. “If he can truly ascend to immortality and truly grasp the authority of fate, then he is a child of fate.”
He sneered. “And if he can’t?”
“If he can’t…” the Grand Ancestor said softly, “then he is just like those crushed children of fate, just a joke.”
“Hahaha.” Liao Chen laughed. He didn’t know whether to laugh at those rules that targeted and feared him, or to laugh at the so-called conclusion of a child of fate.
Was it because he was born a child of fate, or was it because he was feared and targeted by others that he became a child of fate?
If he were truly a child of fate, why would he be so difficult and arduous? If he were a child of fate, how could he become so humble under the oppression of the rules…
If one day he really did grasp fate, then how would the suffering he had experienced be judged?
The Grand Ancestor looked at him and said softly, “These sufferings will strengthen his divinity.”
See, they say everything.
“Don’t work so hard.” Liao Chen held his hand and said with lowered eyes, “Eight months is fine. Eight months, as long as you are happy, without any worries… that’s also good.”
Yan Jingyu’s mouth parted. For a moment, he didn’t know how to answer him.
He hesitated, then reached out his hand and gently stroked the other’s forehead. Liao Chen was just docilely letting him stroke him.
Yan Jingyu withdrew his hand, then touched his own forehead, and said with hesitation, “Have you, been possessed?”
“…”
“Anyway, I’m going to cultivate properly!” Yan Jingyu directly stood up. “For the remaining eight months, I’m going to work hard again. Where is my Du Fang Sword? Bring it here!”
Liao Chen held out his hand, and the familiar longsword appeared in his palm.
Yan Jingyu glanced at it. As he reached out to take it, he said with confusion, “When did you become so compatible with it?”
He held the blade and grabbed it with force, but couldn’t pick it up. Liao Chen’s expression was calm. Yan Jingyu used both his hands to grab it, and after a great deal of effort, he finally picked it up. Soon, he turned his hand and twirled a sword flower. After he finished, he knew very well that it was Liao Chen who was helping him.
He paused for a moment. “What on earth did you do to Du Fang behind my back?”
“Nothing.”
“…Then why do you two look like an old married couple?”
Yan Jingyu glanced at Du Fang, his expression becoming sullen.
Du Fang flashed gently, its light soft, as if it were comforting his glass heart.
Not until Liao Chen summoned ‘Lian Feng’. “It’s just that it’s been playing with ‘Lian Feng’ quite well recently.”
As expected, Du Fang soon came out of its sheath on its own, leaving the scabbard in Yan Jingyu’s hand. It directly collided with ‘Lian Feng’ with a clang, and after a clanging fight, they both slanted down from above at the same time, stopping in front of Yan Jingyu, forming a symbol of a clash.
They flashed and flashed, as if they had been fighting in a group on a stage, and then suddenly cooperated to do a thank-you gesture, like dramatic characters.
Unfortunately, the sword’s showing off was really not that good. Yan Jingyu looked at Liao Chen, then at the two longswords that were inexplicably compatible in front of him.
He crossed his arms, his fingers tapping on his arms back and forth.
“I don’t think I can go on like this.”
Liao Chen: “…Hmm?”
“I’ve been trying to draw in spiritual energy all these years, and I’ve been failing. Maybe I can just skip drawing in spiritual energy and go fight with others? Maybe then I can suddenly open up my extraordinary meridians?”
“…” Before Liao Chen could speak, he had already waved his hand and summoned the Hundred Battles Manual from the Immortal Registry. “I’ve decided. I’m going to participate in the martial arts competition. Although I’m just a mortal, in this kind of low-level field, the highest is only Phoenix-Beginning. I definitely have a way to defeat them.”
“You…”
“You wait!” Yan Jingyu turned and began to pack his luggage. “In eight months, I will definitely be able to have a peak battle with you!”
