Chapter 95:
just after New Year’s Eve. Scraps of red from spent firecrackers had
littered the snowy ground, and the faint smell of smoke lingered in the air.
He had celebrated the New Year with everyone else the night before, indulging in the tusu wine4 reserved for the occasion.
Mo Ran looked up, slightly tipsy. In the warm glow of the candlelight, Shi Mei’s eyes were like the waters of spring, tender and affectionate from every angle.
Sisheng Peak was alive with laughter and merriment. He had thought, back then, that this was wonderful. That even if he never ended up acting on his feelings toward the person he liked, he’d be content to stay by his side for a lifetime and watch over him from a distance, just like this.
The festivities came to a close, and the disciples drifted back to their quarters. He and Shi Mei left Mengpo Hall together, their path lit by the moonlight reflected on the snowy ground. Shi Mei looked a little cold, so Mo Ran shrugged off his outer robe and draped it over his shoulders
without a word. Emboldened by the alcohol coursing through his blood, he snuck a few more glances than usual.
Beauty like new-fallen snow, pure and untouchable.
“A-Ran.”
“Hm?”
“You drank a little too much today.”
“Did I? Ha ha…” The rest of Mo Ran’s laughter died in his throat.
Shi Mei had cupped his face with chilly hands, making his already warm cheeks burn hotter. Mo Ran’s eyes opened wide, and a tremor ran through his body.
“Mhm,” Shi Mei said with a smile. “Look at you, three cups and your face is all red.”
“I-it’s just kinda hot.” Mo Ran scratched his head goofily, his face aflame.
He had been so easily satisfied back then. Simply liking someone was enough. He didn’t need his feelings returned, didn’t dare to dream of more. That person had merely touched his face, yet he felt like he had been blessed by the heavens. He stared in a daze, words abandoning him, his inky black eyes glistening with wonder and gratitude.
The two bid each other goodnight before the disciple quarters.
Before leaving, Shi Mei turned to smile at him, draped in Mo Ran’s robe and backlit by the enchanting glow of moonlight on snow. “A-Ran.”
Mo Ran had already turned to leave, but at the sound of his name, he whipped around in a fluster like a spinning top for fear of missing
something. “Y-yes!”
“Thanks for lending me your robe.”
“It’s nothing! I was hot anyway!”
“And,” Shi Mei’s gaze grew even softer, so warm it seemed it could chase away the long winter. “A-Ran, actually, I…”
A firework exploded in the distance.
Mo Ran didn’t catch what he said; or perhaps Shi Mei didn’t actually say anything more. By the time it was again quiet, Shi Mei was already pushing open the door to his room.
“Wait!” Mo Ran called out, panicked. “What did you say just now?”
Shi Mei was uncharacteristically playful, blinking his eyes as he teased, “Good things can only be said once.”
“Shi Mei—”
But that alluring person did not relent. Only the lower half of his elegant face was visible beneath the cold-proofing curtain, bearing a soft
smile that Mo Ran would remember for the rest of his life. “It’s late,” he said. “I’m going to bed. If I still feel like telling you in the morning…” Shi Mei paused, soft lashes drooping like feathery mimosa leaves. “I’ll tell you then.”
Who could have known morning would bring with it the Heavenly Rift? In the end, Mo Ran never got to hear the rest, and the most tender dream of his life was dyed a bloody scarlet.
How many times had he dreamt of that smile on Shi Mei’s face beyond the half-raised curtain, of its beauty and gentleness? Perhaps he’d only imagined it, but he’d felt that smile had held boundless feelings.
Time and again, over the course of his painful life, he dreamt the rest of that dream. In his dream, Shi Mei would say that he liked him. Mo Ran would wake up grinning, happy, so happy that for a moment he would forget Shi Mei was dead, that there was no turning back.
Still grinning happily, he would contemplate the rest of their lives together, contemplate what delicious foods he would make for his beloved
—such important matters were worth putting some thought into, after all.
But then, grinning and grinning, tears would start to roll. He would bury his face in his hands. He would never hear the words that had scattered into the wind on that snowy New Year’s Eve.
Ripping through thousands of miles of heavy clouds, the Infinite Hells yawned open. Evil spirits and demonic fiends, countless in number, poured from the rift like a legion marching to besiege a city. The screams from all around jolted Mo Ran from his memories. Nearly crazed, he pushed through the chaotic, surging crowd, shouting frantically, beside himself with panic, searching—
“Shi Mei! Shi Mei! Shi Mingjing! Where are you? Where are
you?!”
I don’t know why the Heavenly Rift came three years early. I don’t know if I can protect you with the strength I have now. I can’t bear to see you hurt again, can’t bear to watch you die again…
Please live…
It’s my fault. I should have gotten stronger so I could protect you right away—I was stupid. I didn’t think things through, didn’t consider that this might happen. Where are you…
“A-Ran…” Between the clashing of weapons, he heard a faint voice.
“Shi Mei!”
There he was, next to Xue Meng, shielding the pair of them against the onslaught of evil spirits with a screen of flowing water. Mo Ran
hurtled toward him, heedless of all else, his throat tight and his eyes stinging.
“You damn mutt! Get over here already and help!” Xue Meng fought with the might of ten men, but the waves of corpses were a
ceaseless tide. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as he said through gritted teeth, “Hurry up!”
He didn’t need to say any more. Mo Ran leapt into the air with a flash of red as Jiangui answered his summons. He brandished the willow vine, and the holy weapon annihilated an entire row of the vicious ghosts in a single lash, transforming them to dust in an instant. Mo Ran turned his head to yell in Shi Mei’s direction, “Stay close, get behind me!”
“I want to go help Shizun…”
“Don’t move!” The words struck unadulterated fear into Mo Ran’s heart. Under no circumstances would he allow Shi Mei anywhere near Chu Wanning in this battle. Not this time. Memories from his past life overlaid and bled into the scene before him. Back then, he had said the same thing:
“I want to go help Shizun.”
“All right, go quick. You’ll be safer over there with Shizun. Stay close and let him protect you.”
Let him protect you. How absurd. Chu Wanning, Chu Wanning…
Mo Ran had planned and calculated for every possibility, but he had
forgotten to consider that this person was Chu Wanning! Cold-blooded and heartless. Head full of “the common people,” but not a whit of care for his own dying disciple.
“Don’t go over there! He can take care of himself!” Mo Ran’s head felt numb from the overlapping vision of two lifetimes. Eyes bloodshot, he roared at Shi Mei, “Don’t move! Stay right here!”
“But Shizun expended so much of his strength just now…”
“He’ll live! Worry about yourself!” Mo Ran scowled darkly and directed another powerful lash at the surging waves of undead, sending flesh and blood flying and clumps of brain matter splattering to the
ground. His current level of spiritual power was a far cry from the heights he’d achieved in his past life, but the forms and movements came to him like second nature. After all, his body had seen countless battles and had crossed blades with the likes of Ye Wangxi and Chu Wanning. He fought fearlessly, undaunted in the face of the savage undead in their millions.
The rift in the sky grew.
The fiends that had been confined within the Infinite Hells for centuries poured into the mortal realm in a violent deluge. They mixed with the walking corpses of Butterfly Town that had taken advantage of the strength afforded them by the sudden influx of yin energy to struggle free of Chu Wanning’s willow vines.
The situation grew increasingly terrifying, increasingly out of control, frantic as a pot of boiling oil doused with water. The ghosts and
demons snatched living people and tore into them like a swarm of locusts descending on a field of crops. Demonic encounters were routine business for those from Sisheng Peak; they could hold their own. But the same could not be said of Rufeng Sect and Bitan Manor. One after another, their cultivators screamed and their blood splashed into the air.
Chu Wanning was too far away for Mo Ran to see how he fared, but he caught sight of Ye Wangxi and Nangong Si among the throngs of
people. For all the two were at odds, their fighting styles were strikingly similar. He saw Ye Wangxi toss aside his sword to summon a long bow in a flash of blue light, while Nangong Si’s bow was like the arc of the
crescent moon in his hand. The two exchanged a glance before dashing past one another to cover one side each, aiming at the densest masses of undead corpses and drawing their bows to the fullest. They let fly at practically the same instant, the white of the arrows’ fletching cleaving through the skies with a sound like the screeching of birds. The arrows were tempered with spiritual power, encased in blades of cutting wind that sliced through the air and ripped through every fiend in their path.
Looking rather pleased with himself, Nangong Si reached back for another arrow, but the quiver at his back was empty. “I’m out?”
“Here.” Before his temper could begin to spark, Ye Wangxi had already tossed him another bundle of arrows. “You never bring enough.”
“Hmph!” Nangong Si scoffed, but this was hardly the time to be stubborn for the sake of appearances. He accepted the arrows, and the two returned to their respective battles.
An hour passed in the blink of an eye. Though the cultivators beat back hordes of vicious fiends, still more flooded from the ghost realm to replace them. Li Wuxin cut down a dozen spirits in one slash, then turned to yell at Xue Zhengyong, “We can’t keep on like this, we have to fix the barrier!”
Xue Zhengyong glanced at the four golden arrays glowing in the distance, positioned at each of the town’s four cardinal points. He huffed out a breath and snapped back, cross, “Easy for you to say—do you know how to fix this barrier? Do you even have anyone who knows a thing about barriers?”
“I…” Li Wuxin’s face was sullen. “Barriers aren’t one of my sect’s specialties.”
“Then shut the fuck up! How many Yuhengs do you think there are?
Chu Wanning is holding down the four critical points right now, and if he lets up, those damn ghosts will rush the blockade and everyone in Sichuan will be a goner! If we cultivators can barely hold on, how do you expect the common folk to survive?!”
“Better that Sichuan be done for than the entire cultivation world! If you don’t find someone to mend the Heavenly Rift right now, we won’t be able to anymore!”
Xue Zhengyong’s temper flared at these words, and when he next swung his metal fan to send a powerful gale hurtling toward the vicious ghosts, he allowed it—as if by accident—to open a slice across Li Wuxin’s cheek. “And why should the people of the lower cultivation realm die for the sake of your precious upper cultivation realm’s safety?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth! I’m saying that sacrifices must be made for the greater good! If this Heavenly Rift had opened at my Bitan Manor, I would’ve gladly sacrificed my entire sect to keep the peace in the land!”
“What a thing to say, Li-zhuangzhu. But talk is cheap.” Xue Zhengyong, his tiger eyes round with fury, was so angry he could only laugh. “The entrance to the ghost realm lies in my province. It is not and will never be in your Bitan Manor, no matter how many generations pass!
So, what, the entirety of Sisheng Peak ought to sacrifice itself a thousand times, a million times, for ‘peace in the land’?! Li-zhuangzhu, you really are something!”
The two were locked in a stalemate, bickering as they fended off demons and fiends, when a streak of snow-white brilliance swept toward them from the western horizon.
Before they could ascertain whether it was friend or foe, a burst of frenzied melody descended from the clouds like a tempest, as sonorous and resonant as a deluge from the heavens—yet also like a shower of arrows. For though they spied no weapons, they felt as if the glint of
blades was all around them, as if they could hear the braying of warhorses and see fire beacons lit along the walls of a distant stronghold.
“Kunlun Taxue Palace!”
Xue Zhengyong’s head snapped up to gaze at the stretch of snowy radiance. At this distance, he could see that it was indeed a multitude of cultivators riding on swords, each clad in robes of frozen mist silk with peach blossom petals drifting around them. The men and women alike had faces beautiful and gentle, their outward appearances frozen in their early twenties by virtue of their method of cultivation.
Some of the Taxue Palace disciples stood on their swords. Others sat, half of them cradling pipas in their arms and half balancing guqins on their knees. Their chords streamed down from the sky above, tumultuous and frenetic yet clear and flowing, and the spirits and undead below shrieked in agony even as they were held in place, as if trapped under an invisible net.
The man leading the formation had striking features, with pale gold hair and jade-green eyes. He was clothed in silken robes the white of fresh snow with a pendant resting on his forehead like a droplet of water. Within
the collars of those robes, his neck was fair and slender, like a fragrant, delicate blossom in a porcelain vase. Kunlun was a snowy, frigid land, and the fox fur draped over his shoulders atop those silken robes only added to his aura of poise and elegance.
He held an exquisite pipa in his arms, and his brow was furrowed as he plucked its strings with slender fingers, luminescent petals of peach blossoms dancing about him with every note. “Imperial winds across four seas, waters of virtue ever clear; don not the livery of war, for today we emerge in triumph.”
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The chords slowed, and he glanced down at Xue Zhengyong and company. Yet just as the man was about to speak, an irate holler rang out from a short distance away.
“Mei Hanxue! You damn mutt! Why is it you of all people!”
The voice belonged to Xue Meng, who had darted over to stand under Mei Hanxue’s sword as he yelled and who now tilted his head back to curse, “Of all the people in the world, Kunlun Taxue Palace sent your unreliable ass?!”
Ye Wangxi turned toward the commotion, equally irritated by the sight of that man with his pipa and his flittering flower petals and
snowflakes. “They sent him?”
“What,” Nangong Si asked, “another acquaintance of yours?”
“I wouldn’t call him an acquaintance.” Ye Wangxi was himself less than pleased to encounter Mei Hanxue, but unlike Xue Meng, who had stomped over to cuss him out, Ye Wangxi turned on his heel to leave immediately. “Just fought him once.”
“Oh?” Nangong Si’s curiosity was piqued. “How is he? Any good?”
“Heh.” Ye Wangxi sneered coldly. “He had women do all the fighting for him—how do you think he is?”
Nangong Si stared, speechless.