# 583
Chapter 584: The Seeds
Outside the great hall.
Guan Zai’s brows were locked tight. He stared at Zuo Qing in bewilderment. “Swap lives? What do you mean, swap lives?”
Zuo Qing opened his mouth, about to explain, when a brilliant Buddhist radiance instantly flooded the entire hilltop. All three of them couldn’t help shutting their eyes.
The moment that light appeared, Zuo Qing keenly sensed a presence inside the temple behind him vanishing at terrifying speed…
He turned back, staring blankly at the tightly-shut doors of the hall, looking like a man who’d lost his soul.
“Ye Fan…” he whispered.
……
Purification Chamber.
Deep inside the psychiatric hospital.
“Little Fish, have you eaten today?”
“Little Grass, why are you sleeping again?”
“Little Stone! Why won’t you answer me?”
A man in a blue-and-white striped patient’s gown, hair a chicken-nest, squatted at the Purification Chamber gate, staring earnestly at a few pebbles at his feet and muttering to himself.
Suddenly he froze.
He tilted his head toward the distant sky, slowly stood, and beneath the messy hair a clarity never before seen surfaced in those once-turbid eyes…
One hand pressed to his chest, he spoke, lost:
“Why… does my heart hurt?”
……
A transport plane howled across the sky.
“Captain, we’re almost over Huaihai City—time to jump!” Kong Shang, golden cloak fluttering, shook Xia Simeng in the next seat, who was strapped in and snoring like a dead pig, eyes full of resignation.
“Tch, she’s really out cold…” a teammate muttered with a wry smile.
“Captain’s always like that. Once she’s asleep you’d need a blade at her throat to wake her—otherwise forget it.”
“Blade? Anyone got one? Let’s try.”
“Try it, then!”
While the rest rustled about, Xia Simeng still lolled in her seat, light snores drifting out…
Just as they debated which knife to use, Xia Simeng jolted awake like a shell shot from a cannon! Safety harness shattered, after-images streaking, she dived head-first twenty metres away into a pile of luggage with a clatter.
The teammates were dumbstruck.
“D-did the captain hear us?” one whispered. “Is she going to silence us?”
Kong Shang, puzzled, walked to the mountain of cases.
Amid the scattered luggage lay the golden-cloaked girl, staring blankly at the ceiling, face bloodless.
“Captain… you okay?” Kong Shang asked carefully.
She stayed motionless for a long time, then rasped:
“I… seemed to have a nightmare.”
……
Somewhere in Great Xia.
Several grey-cloaked figures flitted through the forest. Ahead, a huge shadow barreled forward.
“Tianping, I’ll freeze time here in a second. You fly over first, then we stop it together.” Wang Mian’s hand rested on the hilt of his Mandarin Arrow as he turned to Tianping.
Tianping grunted, lifted off from the trees and shot toward the racing shadow.
Wang Mian drew a breath. “All ready—time-freeze in three, two—”
Before “one” left his lips, Wang Mian’s body spasmed; he froze solid!
The others, primed to strike, stopped and stared.
“Captain, what’s wrong?” Xuanwo asked.
Wang Mian’s grip tightened on his hilt, then slowly loosened.
“I don’t know,” he shook his head, “but… something bad just happened.”
……
Shangjing City.
Night Watch Team 006 quarters.
Shao Pingge, bored behind his desk, twirled a pen and yawned.
Across from him Yuan Gang bent over a mountain of paperwork, writing furiously.
“Sleepy?” Yuan Gang asked darkly.
“Yep,” Shao Pingge answered honestly.
“Then take a nap.”
Shao Pingge raised a brow. “Er… wouldn’t that be rude? You’re doing my work while I sleep in front of you…”
“So you DO know it’s your job?!” Yuan Gang slammed his pen down. “All afternoon—me fixing your files, you yawning at me… doesn’t your heart ache?”
Shao Pingge paused. “My heart’s pretty healthy.”
Yuan Gang: …
Seeing Yuan Gang’s face darken, Shao Pingge coughed and was about to salvage brotherhood when the pen slipped.
The spinning fountain-pen fell.
Clack!
It hit the floor, denting its cap, rolled into the corner’s darkness and stopped.
Shao Pingge stared at it, transfixed.
……
Great Xia, Mist Border.
Jinian leaned against her super-car’s hood, cloak wrapped round her, hands in pockets, gazing at the vast fog wall, lost in thought.
Suddenly she frowned and glanced sideways.
Puzzlement flashed in her eyes.
After a moment she climbed in, floored the throttle, engine howling as she plunged into the endless mist and vanished.
……
Inside the Buddhist hall.
The six heroic spirits stared at the black-robed figure standing before the coffin, shock and confusion in their eyes.
He had his back to the black coffin, facing the mummified Ye Fan in the centre, silent, unreadable.
“…That’s the whole story.”
Li Kengqiang finished explaining and fell quiet.
In the dead stillness, the man finally spoke:
“I… understand.
Thank you…”
He turned stiffly and walked toward the doors, soul seeming to trail behind.
Midday sunlight spilled through the crack, casting his lone shadow across the stones—never had it looked so desolate.
Creak—
He pushed the doors open; blinding light flooded in. He stood in the glare while two lines of tears slid down, dripping onto the bluestone steps…
Fists clenched, then slowly relaxed, he left the hall alone.
Behind him the six spirits watched his departure, wordless.
At last Wang Qing broke the silence.
“I don’t get it… how can a quarter of a soul be that strong?”
In their midst, armoured Huo Qubing gazed after him and said slowly:
“That wasn’t a quarter of a soul.
It was a complete… Mortal-World Sword Immortal.”
“But shouldn’t he have dissolved into the Dao? Why is his soul whole?” Tang Yusheng echoed, bewildered.
Huo Qubing looked down at the black skirt that had once wrapped the crystal heart…
“Perhaps something happened we never knew.”