Chapter 1: Between Life and Death, Returning to the Capital
Chen Changsheng was about to return to the capital. Upon hearing this news, Zhuang Huanyu fell silent for a very long time, just as he had a few days earlier when he first heard that Chen Changsheng was still alive.
After the group from the Zhou Garden left Hanqiu City and returned to the capital, Zhexiu had been requested by the court from the Li Palace. Everyone believed that Chen Changsheng had perished along with the collapse of the Zhou Garden. Qijian, back on Li Mountain, remained unconscious. Moreover, matters between men and women were the easiest way to stir up trouble in the world. He believed that no one would ever believe Zhexiu and Qijian's explanations. So he was delighted, feeling that life had finally returned to its proper course. However, he occasionally thought of Liang Xiaoxiao—that young genius who had used the final form of the Li Mountain Sword Technique to commit suicide right before his eyes. Then his body would begin to grow cold. No matter how many quilts he covered himself with, he couldn't get warm. It was as if the shadow of a demon stood silently in the air around him.
But what chilled him even more was that Chen Changsheng hadn't died.
He had appeared in the wilderness north of Tianliang County, reportedly together with the legendary Little Martial Uncle of Li Mountain. Next, it was said that Xue He, the Divine General, had gone after him, but Chen Changsheng still hadn't died. They went to Xunyang City. Then Liang Wangsun and Hua Jia Xiao Zhang appeared. Zhu Luo and Guan Xingke, two of the Eight Winds and Rains, appeared. And Chen Changsheng still hadn't died... Why won't you just die?
Zhuang Huanyu stood in the courtyard, looking up at the pitch-black night sky that seemed like an abyss, his face pale. He muttered to himself, "Why won't you just die?"
He stared at the night sky for a long time, then murmured, "No one will believe it."
Months earlier, after the night when Wang Zhice had achieved enlightenment, the capital of the Great Zhou had once again been bathed in silvery starlight. That was because Chen Changsheng had been observing the stele and cultivating at the Heavenly Book Mausoleum. After that night, the entire continent learned of the meritorious service he had rendered to the human world, and also learned of the Li Palace's true attitude toward him.
—Chen Changsheng had become the youngest Dean of the National Academy in history. His Holiness the Pope had chosen him as his successor. He was the heir to the State Religion.
No one would believe that the heir to the State Religion would collude with the demon race, because the demons couldn't offer him greater benefits. If he had died in the Zhou Garden from the start, or for the sake of the interests of some living people, certain individuals might have tried to believe it. But Su Li had returned alive to Li Mountain, and Chen Changsheng was returning alive to the capital. So all of this was coming to an end. The conspiracy that Liang Xiaoxiao had woven with his own death was on the verge of unraveling. Of course, there were those who held different views, such as that terrifying Lord Zhou Tong.
Because Zhou Tong knew that Chen Changsheng was a student of Ji Daoren. He believed that Ji Daoren, in order to take revenge, would not hesitate to collude with the demon race, even if it meant sacrificing the entire human world. But Zhuang Huanyu didn't know these things. So as more and more news of Chen Changsheng's return from the south reached the capital, he grew increasingly silent. He never left his small courtyard again. His dashing figure could no longer be seen in the lush groves of the Heavenly Dao Academy. He began to understand why, back in the Zhou Garden, when he saw Zhexiu carrying Qijian into the forest lodge, Liang Xiaoxiao had died with such resolve.
Besides death, what else could be done?
He lowered his head, looking at the dark well in the courtyard, at the well water deep within that reflected the dim starlight. Suddenly, he shivered.
He had grown up in the countryside with his mother, living a frugal life, studying tirelessly. When he came to the capital and entered the Heavenly Dao Academy, because his father was the Vice Dean of the Academy and his own cultivation talent was extremely high, he received much affection from his teachers and respect from his classmates. But he had never relaxed his demands on himself. Even on cold winter days, he insisted on bathing with icy well water.
Now it was late spring. The capital was very stuffy and hot, already feeling like summer. Yet he found the well water cold.
That icy feeling was terrifying, despairing.
Staring at the deep well mouth, Zhuang Huanyu's face grew paler and paler. After a long time, he finally turned and left the wellside.
This was the first time in many days he had left the small courtyard where he lived. The Heavenly Dao Academy students he encountered along the way looked at him with surprise, stepping aside to bow and greet him. Zhuang Huanyu seemed to see nothing, nor did he speak to these classmates. He walked directly to a building deep within the Heavenly Dao Academy.
This was the residence of the Dean of the Heavenly Dao Academy. Mao Qiuyu had once lived here. Later, when Mao Qiuyu went to the Li Palace to take up the post of Archbishop of the Zhechong Hall, this place became the residence of the new Dean.
The new Dean of the Heavenly Dao Academy was named Zhuang. He was Zhuang Huanyu's biological father.
Standing outside the quiet residence, separated by the sparse plum branches, looking at the lamplight in the building and the silhouette of that man, Zhuang Huanyu fell silent again for a long time, but his face was no longer as pale as before.
His father had abandoned him and his mother back then, gone to the capital for the imperial examinations, and had an ambiguous relationship with that woman from the Tang family of Wenshui. He was utterly ungrateful and faithless—this was the story Zhuang Huanyu firmly believed, the view he had always held of his father. So he had always harbored great hatred and malice toward his father. Consequently, when facing his father, he would always summon the greatest courage.
He didn't know why he had come here tonight, but he realized that because of his anger toward the man behind the window, the despair and coldness in his heart had actually improved quite a bit.
Then, he left the Heavenly Dao Academy and walked to the stone pillars before the Li Palace. He stopped and did not go any further.
He was a high talent of the Heavenly Dao Academy, a key figure of the next generation being cultivated by the State Religion. He had sufficient qualifications to enter the Li Palace, but he didn't. He hadn't come to the Li Palace to sightsee, to see the last few night-blooming cherry blossoms. He had come to the Li Palace to see someone. But even if he entered the Li Palace, he couldn't see that person. Just as even though he was the genius Zhuang Huanyu, he had no right to approach that person. Just like before at the Heavenly Dao Academy, he could only occasionally catch a glimpse of that fairy-like junior sister in Dean Mao Qiuyu's residence, and then watch her drift away like a celestial maiden.
Standing before the Li Palace, quietly gazing at the Qingxian Hall in the night, imagining that junior sister's life in His Holiness the Pope's Green Leaf World, Zhuang Huanyu began to reminisce.
He wanted to sort through the past few years, to figure out how all these things had happened.
Several years ago, he had met her at the Heavenly Dao Academy. Then, they met again at the Green Vine Banquet. Just when he thought they might become acquainted, he saw her holding the sleeve of a young man named Chen Changsheng.
Yes, so that's how it all began.
By the lakeside of the Zhou Garden, when Liang Xiaoxiao suddenly attacked, and the demon clan experts were about to kill Chen Changsheng, Zhexiu, and Qijian, he was in the forest. He didn't draw his sword. He didn't show himself.
Yes, because he was afraid at that moment. He was still a young man. He wanted to live.
But thinking back now, wasn't it also because he had always harbored deep jealousy and hatred for Chen Changsheng in his heart?
He really wanted Chen Changsheng to die.
Why won't you just die?
It suddenly began to rain in the capital. The Li Palace was no exception.
The late spring air was instantly washed clean by the rain. The wet bluestone slabs even seemed to emit a chill.
Zhuang Huanyu didn't hold an umbrella. He just stood there in the rain, silent for a long time.
Some Li Palace clergy came to inquire. Recognizing him, and connecting it to the news that Chen Changsheng would return to the capital tomorrow, they thought they understood something and didn't disturb him further.
The clergy and students from the Six Green Vine Academies, coming and going with umbrellas in the rain, looked at him, soaked through, with very complex expressions—some pity, some sympathy, and of course, some mockery.
Zhuang Huanyu returned to his small courtyard in the Heavenly Dao Academy.
His clothes were completely soaked by the rain. What did heat or cold matter anymore? But for some reason, in the end, he still didn't jump into that deep, cold well.
In the final moment of his life, he held onto some pride. He used a sword.
He chose to die by his own sword.
News of Zhuang Huanyu's death quickly spread throughout the entire capital.
That gray courtyard not far from the Imperial City was the first place to receive this news, because this was the Qingli Department.
When Zhou Tong heard the news, he was holding a lantern, standing in his vegetable patch in front of a mugwort plant, trying to find the stem-boring insect that had nearly bitten his prized orchid to death the night before.
Zhuang Huanyu's death was naturally related to Chen Changsheng's return to the capital. Those on Chen Changsheng's side would surely feel vindicated. Those who had tried to use this matter to attack Chen Changsheng, or even the State Religion, would inevitably be somewhat disappointed.
Zhou Tong was probably the only person in the world who truly believed Chen Changsheng might have colluded with the demon race. Yet he felt no sense of defeat whatsoever. Instead, he laughed. "A good death."
He was genuinely happy. Though he didn't laugh so hard he doubled over, the lantern in his hand shook so much that the shadow of the mugwort stalk cast many afterimages on the vegetable patch, like a fence.
From the time the Xunyang City affair concluded, confirming that Su Li was alive and Chen Changsheng was also alive, the wind in the capital had immediately shifted.
The Li Palace and the military had exerted immense pressure on the Qingli Department, demanding he release Zhexiu.
Releasing Zhexiu was a gift, a grand gift to welcome Chen Changsheng's return.
Of course, Zhou Tong wouldn't release him. If Chen Changsheng's identity weren't so sensitive, he would have locked Chen Changsheng up in the front courtyard's prison as well.
So he thought Zhuang Huanyu's death was a good death. A death that left no witnesses. A good death that left no witnesses.
Of course, he was well aware that given Chen Changsheng's current status and position, Zhuang Huanyu's death didn't mean much.
But someone would definitely use this matter.
The new rain washed away the light dust. The spring in the capital hadn't faded; instead, it had deepened, becoming extremely bright, even somewhat cloying.
A carriage procession returned to the capital.
Chen Changsheng sat inside the carriage, feeling the fluctuations coming from the scabbard, knowing that the Black Dragon was about to awaken. He felt very comforted.
Then, he heard a voice from outside the carriage.
"Traitor!"
Many people knew that the person in the carriage was Chen Changsheng. The capital's citizens, always fond of a spectacle, couldn't help but gather on both sides of the street to watch the excitement, talking noisily, a bustling scene.
After those two words rang out, the main street of the capital fell into utter silence.