Chapter 458: Longing in Two Places
In the Great Zhou, if Mo Yu asked anyone for anything, be it a sword or even their entire family fortune, countless people would gladly offer it with both hands, considering it a great honor.
Although Chen Changsheng’s status was no longer ordinary, if he could use his earlier slip of the tongue to turn this secret connection between them into friendship, it would clearly be a good thing. This was going with the flow—easy and natural—and no one would refuse.
Chen Changsheng did not refuse, but he also did not immediately agree. He thought it over very seriously, then looked into Mo Yu’s eyes and asked, “Why?”
Mo Yu was stunned. She never imagined that when she, who rarely asked anyone for anything, made such a request, she would receive such a response.
Of course, she would not answer Chen Changsheng’s question. She sneered coldly, turned around, and vanished into the woods outside the window.
Chen Changsheng watched the faintly visible figure in the night forest, puzzled as to why her mood had suddenly soured.
He had just thought it over and confirmed that the Yue Nu Sword was indeed not on the list, but... it was his own thing. Even if she asked him for it, couldn’t he ask for a reason? To put it more bluntly, if he didn’t want to give away his own possession, wasn’t that allowed? The people of Xining Town were so simple, Senior Brother Yu Ren was so simple—why were these people in the capital so hard to understand?
He stopped dwelling on matters far more complicated than the Daoist scriptures, closed his eyes, and resumed meditation.
Perhaps because Mo Yu had left in such a hurry that she hadn’t had time to leave much of her fragrance in the room, he entered a meditative state very quickly this time. Soon, he sensed his destiny star and began to draw starlight to refine his marrow. At the same time, he sent an extremely fine thread of divine sense from his sea of consciousness into the sword sheath. With some difficulty but now familiar with the path, he crossed that ocean of sharp sword intent, once again reached the other shore, and saw the phantom of the black stone stele. After days of effort, his divine sense no longer shattered upon touching the black stele; he could even penetrate a bit deeper. Tonight especially, this thread of his divine sense fully immersed itself into the phantom of the black stele, and he vaguely saw a cliff!
That cliff was quite broken, but still barely recognizable. The top should have been smooth, hard gray-white rock, but now it was covered in countless cracks. All the green trees were destroyed, except for a few pines whose roots had dug deep into the crevices, stubbornly clinging on. In the distance beyond that cliff, he could also see many small lakes like mirrors, which struck him as familiar.
Was it Mu Yu? Were those small lakes the wetlands at the edge of the Never-Setting Sun Prairie, the place where he had escaped from the lake bottom on the other side of the mountain? Then was this really the current Zhou Garden? Was she... still inside? At this moment, his divine sense had delved too deep into the phantom of the black stele and was crushed by an immensely powerful force. He couldn’t even search the Zhou Garden, let alone hold on for another instant. He merely took this distant look, thought for a moment, and then his divine sense dissipated like a wisp of green smoke.
Chen Changsheng opened his eyes and woke up.
The night was deep now, the sky outside the window full of stars. Under the starry sky, the woods of the National Academy looked like lush, verdant grass blades.
Just like the wild grass in the Never-Setting Sun Prairie, taller than a man.
Chen Changsheng naturally recalled the days he had traveled with her through the prairie, remembered their life-and-death bond in the Snow Temple, the mingling of blood in the Zhou Mausoleum, and the conversation at the end of the Divine Path. If Nan Ke hadn’t used the Soul Pivot to control the newborn Golden-Winged Roc and driven the beast tide to surround the Zhou Mausoleum, perhaps he and she would have already begun...
Baring their hearts? Was that the word? He wasn’t sure. It was a strange emotion he had never encountered before—sweet yet frightening, unsettling yet so alluring. Most importantly, the joy and sorrow brought by this emotion were so intense that at times they seemed more important than anything else.
Having studied the Daoist scriptures since childhood and knowing since age ten that his life was short, he had strictly controlled his emotions, neither sad nor joyful. Yet whether it was carrying her on his back in the prairie, their shoulders touching at the stone gate at the end of the Divine Path, or thinking of her now, he could not—and did not want to—control this emotion. Because he loved the beauty of those moments and acknowledged this longing now...
So, where exactly are you?
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Xu Yourong walked among the cliffs.
Her brows and eyes were like a painting, with a hint of youthful innocence, beautiful and moving, solemn and sacred.
Yes, this was poetic, because she was already beautiful to the extreme—beyond description by any tangible thing, only by ethereal rhythm. The night wind stirred her sleeves, her white robes fluttering gently. She walked slowly, each step carrying an air of grandeur. Yet if one looked closely, they might detect a faint sorrow hidden in her watery eyes.
A girl not yet sixteen, who should be enjoying her youth—what was she grieving over?
Because news had come again from Saintess Peak: no one knew who that disciple of the Snow Mountain Sect was. The Snow Mountain Sect, far in the northwest, even refused to acknowledge having a disciple named Xu Sheng. Perhaps you had infiltrated the Zhou Garden, perhaps you were a disciple of a hidden sect, perhaps you had some secret—none of that mattered. But were you really named Xu Sheng? Had you truly died like that?
After leaving the Zhou Garden, her injuries were too severe, so she had been recuperating in seclusion behind Saintess Peak. She no longer enjoyed the snow daily, listened to the rain, or gathered herbs. She only took medicine, read, and meditated in silence.
She meditated on her experiences in the Zhou Garden, on life and death in that prairie, on that man.
She had long resolved to dedicate her life to the Great Way in books, never expecting to encounter the first stirring of her heart. Yet that stirring had passed so quickly, like wind. It was an indescribable, faint sorrow, an unforgettable memory with nowhere to confide. She knew well that in the long years of cultivation ahead, that memory would forever accompany her, known only to herself, eventually becoming a corner of her spiritual world that no one else could touch.
That was a world she was not yet ready to leave, so she naturally no longer cared about worldly affairs. Su Li, Liang Wangsun, Hua Jia Xiao Zhang, Wang Po, Zhu Luo, Guan Xing Ke... the storm at Xunyang City had shaken the entire continent, but it could not lift her slightly lowered eyelids. Only the names of her teacher, the Saintess, and Chen Changsheng made her pause for a moment.
But there was one person she had to care about, and indeed, she truly did care.
The internal strife on Li Mountain, the rebellion of the three elders including Xiao Song Gong, and Qiu Shan Jun’s near-fatal injury—these news had long spread across the southern lands.
The moment her injuries healed and she stepped out from behind Saintess Peak, upon hearing this news, she knew she had to go see for herself.
Yes, she walked among the cliffs.
She was now walking on Li Mountain.
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(There will be another chapter tonight.) r1148
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