"Don't worry, don't worry, I'm here."
Feng Wuya slowly emerged from the bamboo grove. Having hurried back in great haste, his Daoist robes were heavily stained and soiled with dried blood, yet his phoenix eyes gleamed brightly. Wearing a calm smile, he said with a hint of helplessness, "Look at you, losing such a terrible temper at your age."
*Clang—*
A spirit sword shot straight toward him with lightning speed.
Feng Wuya blinked.
The sword stopped one inch from the tip of his nose.
"At my age?" Cui Yanjun asked.
Knowing he had spoken out of turn, Feng Wuya chuckled and pleaded for mercy, "My mistake, my mistake. Junior Sister is forever sixteen."
The spirit sword suddenly swayed from side to side, giving Feng Wuya's arm two sharp swats.
"Let this be a first and last warning."
With that, Cui Yanjun withdrew her sword and turned her gaze to Chang Huaijin. In truth, she knew none of this was his fault.
Massaging her temples, she softened her voice. "Huaijin, what are your actual intentions? You must tell us."
"I..." Chang Huaijin was left speechless.
"Yanjun, enough."
Feng Wuya formed a hand seal to cleanse the bloodstains from his clothes, sparing Chang Huaijin from being triggered by the sight.
Chang Huaijin could not help looking at him.
It was him.
The one who had wiped out the demons with a single sword back then was Feng Wuya.
Thinking of the Chang Family, thinking of that ancestral hall, Chang Huaijin felt his eye sockets grow warm.
"Huaijin."
Feng Wuya retrieved a spirit sword shimmering with a tender green light from his Mustard Seed Bag. Chang Huaijin took it, holding back his emotions for too long before tears finally streamed down, water droplets tumbling directly from his jade-like face into the soil.
This was meant to be his birthday gift for this year.
Feng Wuya raised a hand and gently stroked the crown of his head. "I ran into the Clan Head, and he entrusted you and Woyu to me. This sword is Fubiao, right? Your father said this belongs to you, and he told me he failed Woyu, having not yet found a suitable sword for her."
"If you are willing, stay here in Penglai and learn the sword with me."
"Just never forget where your Inner Demon came from, and what must eventually cause it to vanish."
The boy tightly cradled Fubiao in his arms, his downcast eyelashes damp with moisture. A gentle mountain breeze drifted into the courtyard, seemingly with a mind of its own as it brushed across his forehead, lifting the strands of hair damp with the fierce stench of battle. It lingered affectionately, tapping against his brow again and again just as it had in his childhood, making him tremble uncontrollably.
Chang Huaijin took after his father and possessed a Wind Spiritual Root.
Chang Woyu took after her mother and possessed a Lightning Spiritual Root.
Fubiao was a treasured wind-attribute spirit sword of the Chang Family, the very sword Chang Huaijin had longed for his father to give him since he was a child.
Whenever he asked for it, his father would only say, "Wait a little longer; it will be yours when you grow up."
The fresh breeze felt like an old friend returning.
Slow and steady, neither too light nor too heavy, the mountain breeze drifted gracefully past Chang Huaijin's hairline and into the inner room, smoothing away the tightly knitted brows of Chang Woyu inside.
On the bed, Chang Woyu felt a wave of coolness wash over her cold-sweat-slicked hibiscus face as the breeze caressed her cheeks over and over.
Petted and pampered endlessly by her father and elder brother, she had never suffered hardships like today's. She had always cared deeply about her pride, yet after enduring and enduring, she found herself letting the wind coax tears into a rippling stream down her face.
As the moisture soaked into her pillow, Chang Woyu, even through her hazy sea of consciousness, knew.
He had come.
Feng Wuya quietly formed a hand seal, sending the gentle breeze back up into the heavens.
No matter how deep the attachment, one must not linger in the mortal realm.
After a long silence, the boy's hoarse voice finally sounded.
"Your disciple Chang Huaijin greets Master."
He lifted the hem of his newly changed Daoist robe, knelt with a straight back, and obediently performed three kowtows to Feng Wuya.
Feng Wuya cared little for formal apprenticeship ceremonies, yet he did not stop him.
This was the greatest respect Chang Huaijin could offer his master in his heart.
When he finished kowtowing, Feng Wuya waved a hand, using spiritual energy to lift Chang Huaijin to his feet.
"For tomorrow's morning practice, Weiwei will take you."
Chang Huaijin acknowledged the instruction, then turned to Cui Yanjun, whose expression remained grim. "Greetings, Third Senior Sister."
Cui Yanjun nodded slightly and shoved the welcoming gift she had prepared directly into his arms. "I am not as clever as First Senior Brother, so I cannot guess why you would willingly let an Inner Demon take root."
"An Inner Demon is not something to trifle with; it will show you no mercy when it torments you. When times are hard, think of Woyu."
A physician's heart is like the Bodhi tree.
No matter how angry she was, it was simply because her heart ached for Chang Huaijin, who was still just a child.
"Thank you, Third Senior Sister."
Chang Huaijin felt a fresh wave of sorrow. In a single day, he had tasted the warmth and coldness of human relationships.
It was not that the Chang Family had not sought help from other noble clans; it was simply that while the Chang Family guarded the borders, the nearest clans were too far away. Moreover, clan rescue efforts involved many calculations, and even rare clans were often split into several factions.
In truth, the Chang Family need not have been completely wiped out.
Had just a few people—had even one person—been willing to come to their aid, one more member of the Chang Family might have survived.
His father likely never imagined that the first to arrive at the Chang Family would be Penglai.
Penglai, situated on the sea far beyond the borders of Tongzhou.
Noticing his thoughts drifting far away, Feng Wuya spoke up at the right moment, "Think no more of it."
"Go back and rest. I will see to it that Tongzhou provides an explanation for this matter."
Chang Huaijin nodded and said no more. He trusted Feng Wuya.
The boy's figure gradually stretched out under the moonlight—slender, yet held rigidly straight. Viewed from afar, his brows remained tightly furrowed, his thin lips pressed firmly beneath a straight nose, as if holding back some grievance, or harboring some reason for which he could never afford to let his strength fail.
Now that the child had left, the adults began to discuss serious matters.
"The Chang Family wiped out in a single day." Feng Wuya gripped the spirit sword in his hand tightly. It had been many, many years since he had last seen blood this thick. By the time he arrived, the entire Chang Family estate was bathed in a froth of gore, and a bloody mist hung heavy over the entire manor.
He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of such a human tragedy.
"The Demon Race has been embroiled in too many conflicts lately. This is the first family, but it will not be the last. Tomorrow, you and Cháojiàn should go open all the illusions. Also, tell Changsheng and Lùn Zhēn to stop running wild outside; they need to come back and teach the children."
Feng Wuya spoke in a long stream, his expression gradually chilling.
The power of the Demon Race had been swelling in recent years, while the current generation of Spirit Race cultivators was failing to produce successors.
Feng Wuya had used divination to foresee that a chaotic era was approaching.
"I asked a few days ago; Fourth Junior Brother is still inside a Secret Realm and cannot come out for the time being. Fifth Junior Brother is free, however." Cui Yanjun understood, her white hair fluttering in the wind. "Is it beginning?"
She preferred the present times; although not entirely peaceful and clear, it was a rare tranquility.
"I don't know," Feng Wuya murmured, pinching his communication talisman. "By the way, where is Cháojiàn? On my way back, I heard people say the seal of the Valley of Ten Thousand Demons has broken?"
Cui Yanjun shook her head. "I'm not entirely sure."
Noticing the fatigue in her eyes, Feng Wuya waved a hand. "I'll go look for him. You go rest."
***
On the shores of Penglai.
A youth in black stood tall and straight.
He stood alone between the moonlight and the sea.
Tonight's moonlight was truly magnificent, scattering generously across the undulating surface of the sea, where the rising and falling waves reflected shattered fragments of moonlight. Penglai lay at the center of the ocean; standing on the shores of Penglai Island, one could not see where the sea ended and the sky began.
Bathed in the night, the horizon and the deep sea melted into one.
"Penglai..." Chí Jīn murmured.
It had been far, far too long since he last saw this moonlight.
In his previous life, he had sat here day and night, praying for his senior brothers and sisters to return.
The sea had been too calm back then, and he had waited for no one.
After Second Senior Sister left, Master and the junior uncles all entered seclusion.
They left no parting words.
Chí Jīn cultivated the Path of Destiny. Born of the fused bloodlines of two races, he stood right at the epicenter of their greatest conflicts, bearing far too much of the suffering of karmic cycles, the agony of Samsara, and the bitter hatred of life, death, and parting. He was the person best suited in all the world to cultivate the Path of Destiny.
Thus, he knew.
It was the Mandate of Heaven.
The Mandate of Heaven required the lives of Penglai's 68th-generation disciples to patch the tears in this world.
First was Second Senior Sister. He remembered what she looked like before she died.
Few people in this world were as bright and radiant as she. Chí Jīn had never imagined that Second Senior Sister would suddenly fall hopelessly in love; yet after a single meeting, she had plunged headfirst into that invisible prison falsely named love, like a moth darting toward a flame, heedless of any warnings.
Ruan Wei, who had vowed to become the supreme sword cultivator and forge a path of survival for all living beings in the world, had become chillingly submissive, willingly making herself an appendage to another. It was then that Chí Jīn abruptly woke up.
This was not her.
He cast divinations and calculated hexagrams: it was both fate and not fate.
So he fought desperately to be on guard, but he could not stop a man whose heart was as hard as iron. She had even offered up the miraculous life-saving medicine, drinking the poison as if it were sweet.
Chí Jīn had almost resigned himself to fate.
Before Second Senior Sister left, however, she seemed to awaken.
Her lips moved as if she wanted to speak, but her parched lips seemed sealed by something, unable to let out a sound.
Their masters and elders were engulfed in boundless grief; the shoulders of his senior brothers and sisters slumped heavily. The eldest senior brother drew his sword, intent on slaughtering that man; the third senior brother hugged the eldest senior brother with reddened eyes; the fourth senior sister collapsed before the bed, her tears soaking her robes.
No one looked into Second Senior Sister's eyes.
Only Chí Jīn.
Ruan Wei looked at Chí Jīn. Her eyes were devoid of the past obsession that had trapped her in love; she simply looked at him with serene, mischievous playfulness. It was as if she had too many things to say, her sparkling peach-blossom eyes holding no mist of tears—only profound calm.
She looked at him.
Chí Jīn looked back, the trembling of his body returning to stillness.
Seeing that he understood, the answers brimming in Ruan Wei's eyes finally dissolved into a smile, as if her mind had finally let go. Yet the next instant, she closed her eyes, and within a single breath, her soul dissipated.
He had read it.
Senior Sister did not accept her fate.
And so, Chí Jīn did not accept his fate either.