Chapter 13: If Life Were Only Like First Meeting (VII)
Waking up in the cliff cave at dawn, the first thing he saw was that bloody and terrifying scene, followed immediately by escape, and then more escape. Although there had been a few brief exchanges of words, in truth, this was the first time Chen Changsheng had the chance to carefully look at the white-clad girl’s appearance. Whether due to poison or some other reason, the white-clad girl’s cheeks were unnaturally swollen. Though it couldn’t conceal the purity and beauty of her brows and eyes, even without the swelling, she was merely pure and beautiful—for an ordinary girl, pure and beautiful was an excellent compliment. But the Xiu Ling tribe were descendants of the ancient elf and tree-demon mixed blood, long renowned for their beauty; otherwise, they wouldn’t have become the most coveted prize of human and demon nobles. Since the girl was of the Xiu Ling tribe, the term pure and beautiful only indicated she was quite ordinary in appearance.
She curled up like a baby, hugging her knees, lying sideways on the green grass, eyes tightly shut, long lashes motionless, as if in a deep sleep from which she would never wake. But Chen Changsheng remembered her eyes. Those eyes had left a deep impression on him in the cliff cave. His own eyes were very clear—Luo Luo and Tang Thirty-Six had both praised them as mirror-like. Her eyes were also very clear, but different from his.
Her eyes were like autumn waters, yet not like lake water—rather, a paler, purer shade of water.
The celadon bowl sat quietly beneath the eaves. A fresh spring rain fell upon the earth, trickling down the eaves, dripping and pattering, gradually forming a melody like a zither. Before long, the spring rain ceased, and sunlight shone brightly again. The bowl beneath the eaves seemed unchanged, but now it held a bit of water—colorless, yet seeming to carry the essence of spring; tasteless, yet as if it had steeped a new batch of tea.
Yes, it was like that layer of water in a porcelain bowl—clear and shallow, but not thin.
Looking at the sleeping girl, Chen Changsheng longed for her to open her eyes, so he could once again see that water-like hue of a clearing sky after rain in the empty mountains.
Then he recalled that when he first saw her in the cliff cave, he had noticed strange, eerie green flames flickering around her pupils—if his guess was correct, that should be the poison planted by Nan Ke—the deadly venom of the peacock tail feather, extremely difficult to remove. No wonder even a Xiu Ling tribeswoman, who were close to nature and skilled in using herbs to dispel toxins, had been weakened so severely by this poison.
Chen Changsheng placed his hand on her pulse and discovered that her meridians were completely empty, with almost no residual true essence left. Even more terrifying, her qi and blood had clearly drained too much; her pulse was already slippery and weak. If this continued, she might truly die silently in her sleep.
This discovery made him tense up. He quickly tried to think of a solution, but the medicines and food he carried had all been thrown out during yesterday’s battle to hit his opponents. After thinking for a moment, he sent his divine sense into the sword hilt and remained silent for a long time. Finally, in what seemed like an empty space, he found a chest.
It was the last chest, very heavy. As soon as it appeared on the grass pile, the ground sank three-tenths of an inch into the water.
Opening the lid, countless dazzling golden leaves and a full half-chest of crystals appeared before his eyes. On top lay a thin booklet—the general formula of the Li Mountain Sword Technique.
This was the most direct and heaviest part of the apprenticeship gift Luo Luo had given him.
If he used the golden leaves and crystals in this chest to buy a house, he could easily purchase the entire Hundred Flowers Lane.
If he were willing to destroy that Li Mountain Sword Technique general formula, even Autumn Mountain Lord would come to bow deeply in thanks.
But in this dangerous grassland, golden leaves and the Li Mountain Sword Technique general formula were utterly useless. He pushed all the golden leaves aside, put the formula back, took out the half-chest of crystals, and piled them around her. Then he walked to the edge of the green grass, stared at the shallow puddles of water, and began to daze off, unsure what he was thinking or planning.
A moment later, his right hand plunged into the lake water.
But now his breathing and heartbeat had become extremely slow, and naturally, his movements were even slower. His hand’s motion didn’t match his plan at all. A slight splash rose, but he missed.
Just as he was feeling somewhat helpless, he suddenly noticed a thin layer of frost forming on the water’s surface around his arm.
The next moment, he pulled his hand out of the water, his fingers tightly gripping a plump water snake. The snake showed no struggle at all—clearly frozen stiff.
He couldn’t even catch a water snake now, but the extreme cold emanating from his body could help him with some things.
Slowly moving back to her side, he drew his short sword, cut off the snake’s head, brought it to her lips, and began to pour the blood into her mouth.
She was unconscious at this moment, naturally unable to swallow, so some snake blood inevitably spilled from the corners of her lips, making the scene look rather bloody.
After a while, the snake’s blood was drained. He set the snake body aside, looked at the girl’s face, took a handkerchief from his sleeve, and began to carefully wipe her clean.
Even at a time like this, he still lived by his usual habits.
Snake blood contained acrid fire, making it the most suitable for replenishing blood. Coupled with the extravagantly piled crystals around her, it should at least ensure she wouldn’t die in her sleep.
Only then did Chen Changsheng breathe a slight sigh of relief. He sat beside her, gazing at the impenetrable green grass all around, and began to truly daze off.
Lacking medicine, unable to directly replenish blood, it would be hard to cure her. And his own condition was also terrible.
The black dragon slept in the lake water outside the Netherworld Mansion, its spreading frosty chill constantly mending the wounds on his internal organs, but that was only a temporary fix.
He was very weak now, his heartbeat and breathing extremely slow, similar to how cold-blooded animals behaved before the onset of deep winter.
This meant hibernation was approaching.
The method the black dragon used to save him was hibernation.
Hibernation meant sleep.
What he needed most right now was to sleep—a long, deep sleep, sleeping until the sky went dark and the earth grew old.
But he couldn’t sleep.
Because she was sleeping, he had to stay awake.
This feeling was agonizing.
Wanting to sleep but being unable to—how beautiful that picture was. As one of the most effective forms of punishment, one could imagine how unbearable this was. Chen Changsheng made various efforts and attempts to keep his heavy eyelids from closing: slapping his face, washing his face, pinching his legs, trying to concentrate. Finally, when his divine sense fell upon that black stone, he instantly became truly alert.
The black stone and the notebook were placed together in an extremely remote corner of his world. If he didn’t search carefully, it was easy to miss them. Perhaps for this reason, or perhaps because even at death’s door, his instincts recognized their value, he hadn’t thrown the black stone and notebook along with other things into the two light wings yesterday to help himself escape.
From Xining Town to the capital, breaking off the engagement had never been important. To him, what mattered was the Grand Examination, because only then could he spend a night in deep contemplation at Lingyan Pavilion. For this, he had paid unimaginable time and effort, ultimately achieving this seemingly impossible goal. Yet compared to the price he had paid, what he gained in Lingyan Pavilion seemed rather pitiful. He hadn’t directly found the secret to defying fate and changing his destiny—only obtaining this black stone and notebook.
So naturally, he treasured the black stone and notebook, hoping to gain more from them. And it seemed to be true. On that night at the Heavenly Book Mound’s front mound viewing the steles, those steles floated in his sea of consciousness, yet he couldn’t fully map that starry sky. It was then that the black stone played a crucial role, helping him break through to the upper realm of Tongyou. So what about this notebook?
“Position is relative”—this was the opening sentence of Wang Zhice’s notebook, and also the sentence that left the deepest impression on him.
He looked toward the grassland, where the green was so thick it seemed inseparable, silently pondering this sentence. He found no revelation, but suddenly thought of yesterday, when he and Zhexiu jumped from the cliff top into the cold pool, only to swim out from the lake’s surface. When he sank endlessly toward the lake bottom to avoid Nan Ke’s two attendants’ pursuit, he ended up back here by jumping into the night sky… Position is relative, and also opposite?
Could it be that the Zhou Garden world wasn’t a single plane, but two opposing dimensions combined? With the cliff at the uppermost reaches of the stream as the boundary, the lake and mountain scenery on one side was one world, while the mountains, rivers, and grasslands on this side were the opposing other world. The passage between the two worlds was that cold pool and the pond more than ten li before the Twilight Valley?
Chen Changsheng silently calculated these worlds in his mind. Then he thought of why he and Zhexiu had gone to the world on the other side of the cliff yesterday, and why they had returned from that world to the front side of the Zhou Garden… It was all because of a sword intent. At first, they pursued the sword intent, and in the end, it seemed they were carried out by that sword intent.
Last night, deep in the lake, he was about to die. How could he forget the strange change that occurred at the final moment?
He looked down at the metal ball in his palm, gently stroking it, lost in thought.
With a slight movement of his divine sense, a series of fine, dense friction and collision sounds arose. In an instant, the yellow paper umbrella appeared in his hand.
After a moment of silence, he stood up and extended the yellow paper umbrella forward.
The yellow paper umbrella had no reaction.
He turned his body, and the yellow paper umbrella slowly moved through the air, stirring several gentle breezes.
When the yellow paper umbrella pointed toward what he judged to be the southwest direction, it suddenly stopped.
It wasn’t him making the umbrella stop—it seemed the umbrella itself didn’t want to move anymore. Even the wind on the grass pile vanished without a trace.
A faint but clear tremor traveled from the umbrella’s surface to its ribs, then to its handle, into his hand, and finally into his heart.
A sword intent appeared far ahead.
This sword intent was ethereal, like what he had sensed yesterday by the cold pool, yet also intense, stirring a natural reverence within him.
That sword intent was silent and still, as if it had rested there for countless years, but its very presence represented a summons.
Chen Changsheng thought of the scene last night when the yellow paper umbrella had carried him in a frantic dash, and murmured, “Is this sword intent looking for you?”
After a moment of silence, he looked at the yellow paper umbrella and said, “Or… are you meant to seek out this sword intent?”
(The design of the yellow paper umbrella is truly fascinating… I’ve always liked umbrellas, all kinds of umbrellas, because an umbrella can play many roles—for instance, a radar at this moment.)