Then, his laughter finally vanished in the endless roaring of thunder.
Twenty years ago, a bolt of lightning from the nine heavens had struck Cangyun Valley to warn a child not to leak heaven’s secrets. It had split the ground and shaken the Hall of Demons; the beginning of all the karma that came after.
Now, everything was coming to an end. The child who’d had his head pressed to the ground in prostration to the western sky had grown up. He’d grown into a person with the word rebellion carved into his bones. He could die nine times over with no regrets. He feared nothing.
Seven mountain lanterns suddenly rose into the air, but the lightning and thunder were so overwhelming that no one noticed. Those lanterns slowly rose higher and higher, and went out one by one. A mere fleeting flash before it all returned to silence.
Boom.
Bai Li suddenly started struggling, but he couldn’t break free of his binds. He was overcome by despair. He yelled Shi Wuduan’s name again and again, until his voice was no louder than the buzzing of insects, until he couldn’t make another sound, until his throat was clogged with blood.
However… no matter whether he was the little worrywart fox or the feared Demon Lord, there would always be that one person in the world who could easily bind him.
Then, his binds abruptly vanished. All the starsilk withered to lifeless threads and fell languidly to the ground. Bai Li was stuck to the spot. His eyes were red when he raised his head and looked at that empty spot. That spot, utterly devoid of human presence, where only a handful of ash remained.
The mirror beneath his feet was already shattered. Everything was merely an illusion. The sky suddenly cleared… beneath the place the dust lingered in the air, there was a leftover piece of the disintegrated astrolabe. One end stuck out above the other. Its stars had toppled out, crumbling into ordinary sand.
Bai Li flipped off his horse, winding through the army of thousands, clutching a small wooden figurine in his hand.
Suddenly, someone yelled, “He… he’s the Demon Lord!”
Some reckless fools tried to block his way, but before they even got close, their heads and bodies were already in different places. Bai Li shrugged off his restraints and instantly reached the place where Shi Wuduan had disappeared.
He woodenly kneeled down, feeling like the person he’d wanted for a lifetime, chased for a lifetime, who he’d only just managed to grasp, had suddenly turned into a wisp of wind and flown away. Thus it seemed like… his whole life had passed just like that.
Bai Li reached a hand out and gently touched the remaining ash on the ground, almost feeling like he could sense its remaining warmth. He thought, how could it be like this.
Shi Wuduan, how can you be like this?
Gu Huaiyang suddenly came back to his senses and roared, “Attack! Attack the city!”
Then, he charged to the forth on his horse, not caring one bit about his status as the commander in chief. His vision was wholly taken up by something, he kept feeling like he couldn’t see clearly.
Unrestrained emotion; the pain of a knife twisting in one’s heart.
Lu Yunzhou followed after him. Meng Zhongyong, still stunned, turned and asked, “Si-niang, what about little sixth?”
At some time, the dust on Li Si-niang’s face had already been washed clean by tears.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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The only thing left in his eyes was that handful of ash.
Suddenly, the cold ash suddenly started moving. Bai Li lurched and saw that it moved according to some unseen force, slowly flowing into the wooden person in his hand.
A light suddenly shone from the wooden figurine’s heart. It looked like… a drop of water.
Bai Li’s eyes widened, then he suddenly got to his feet like he was possessed, swiped up the shattered remains of the astrolabe and muttered madly, “That’s right… he said he’d return, he said…”
He pulled a soldier passing by him off his horse, mounted it, and viciously swung his whip, “Go!”
Bai Li rode against the tide of soldiers, and from then forth, none ever saw the legendary Demon Lord again.
That battle raged for a whole ten days. Pingyang’s defense forces put up a stiff resistance, as if they would fight to the last. But the gates teetering behind their loyal backs was finally broken. The Redscarf Army swarmed in. Yan Zhen died in battle, Bitan was captured alive.
The second day, Master Bitan committed suicide in prison.
When Gu Huaiyang entered the imperial palace, the Puqing Emperor was hiding underneath his bed. He was forcefully dragged out, and was so frightened by Gu Huaiyang’s dusty, bloodstained appearance that he kneeled and couldn’t get up.
In the end, the emperor they’d plotted for so long, killed through so many, spared no suffering to reach… was this kind of person. At that moment, Gu Huaiyang didn’t have the words to describe what he was feeling. It was like the strange, unbeatable creature that they’d risked their lives to hunt, risked their lives to scrape off layer after layer of their flesh, that had killed so many of their brothers was, under all its armor, just a shivering midget.
Gu Huaiyang had once intended to publicly execute this emperor, who’d brought so much misfortune upon the country and its people, with the death by a thousand cuts. But when he actually laid eyes upon the kowtowing man, who was promising to immediately abdicate, he suddenly wasn’t in the mood anymore. He felt very tired, like… it wasn’t worth it.
He made a gesture, summoning people to take him away and lock him up. He couldn’t even be bothered to kill him.
In the third month, the spring sunshine melted away the snow. The Puqing Emperor abdicated, issuing an edict of self-recrimination stating that he had neither the capability nor virtue to be the emperor, demoted himself to prince, and gave the seat to General Gu. Thus, did the times shift and the dynasties change.
The Dasheng Sect’s secret treaty was already completed. Gu Huaiyang, in accordance with the agreement made between Shi Wuduan and the sect, decreed that Bodhi Mountain would be the site of the imperial family’s ancestral hall for every generation to come, and treated them with even higher honors.
He issued merits and rewards, re-established the courtly officials, granted amnesty to all under heaven, and excused taxes for three years.
All the commoners celebrated.
Xia Duanfang handed Shi Wuduan’s will to Gu Huaiyang. He remained silent for a long time after he read it. Xia Duanfang kneeled and said, “Your Majesty, I humbly request to guard the demon mountain.”
Yan Zhen had torn a weakness in the Six Circle Living Array. Shi Wuduan had used the astrolabe to create a fake image of the stars, tricking heaven, and restructure the array so that the three buffer realms were sealed within six great mountains, firmly pinning the Hall of Demons beneath them. He had indeed been preparing for this outcome and had, in the letter, already organized the forces that would keep watch over these mountains.
After a long moment of silence, Gu Huaiyang asked, “Are you willing?”
Xia Duanfang smiled, “At least I haven’t turned into a pile of dust, and still have a life to enjoy. What’s there to be unwilling about?”
He paused, then chuckled bitterly, “I have always followed Lord Sixth, from the moment that the Dagu Road was severed, draining the spiritual energy of the land to the Amu Grasslands, it’ll only be twenty or thirty years before it dries up completely. Unless one is of extraordinary talent, who was blessed at birth with great spiritual energy, most common cultivators have only one common end. If later on, someone decides to risk it all trying to seize the yao’s spiritual energy in order to cultivate the Dao, then according to the treaty, the yao will have the final authority to deal with them. But if they are willing to guard the demon mountains, then they’ll have the court’s salary. Even if they no longer have mystic arts, at least they can still practice martial arts and the arrays and seals that Lord Sixth left behind.”
Gu Huaiyang chuckled bitterly, “He really doesn’t… leave any loose ends.”
Xia Duanfang also chuckled bitterly, “That’s right. None of those who went against him ever met a good end. Us normal people may as well obediently go along the road that Lord Sixth has planned out. All of Lord Sixth’s secret correspondences have already been destroyed. Those Daoists in the cavalry won’t know about this, please, rest assured Your Majesty.”
Gu Huaiyang finally nodded, sighed, then waved him away.
That year, the weather was unusually favorable. News of bountiful harvests married from all lands. Everything was beginning to be restored, as if the cruel winter had finally passed, and new shoots were sprouting from the ground. Until the next winter would arrive, and the great Bodhi Mountain was once again sealed by snow.
The sect master Zhiye propped a cup of tea in his hands as he gazed out at the falling snow and said, “Perhaps this year, no one will die of cold or starvation.”
The person sitting across from, appearing to be a young man, remained expressionless and didn’t respond to his words.
The young man had a vaguely peach blossom face, or as old people would put it, he looked a bit like a vixen. His eyes and eyebrows all lilted upwards suggestively. If a cultivator were there, they could tell at a glance that he had blood of the fox race. And yet his peach blossom features were dimmed by his harsh, cold-blooded demeanor, which drove all those around him to keep their distance.
A wooden figurine hung from the young man’s neck. It looked rather out of place, but for some reason, it also seemed oddly fitting.
It was indeed the half fox half demon who’d gone missing outside Pingyang city, Bai Li.
The sect master smiled at Bai Li, “What? Still worried, Demon Lord?”
Bai Li came back to his senses; his eyes darkened. He unconsciously clutched the small wooden person hanging around his neck and asked, “I was tied to the former dynasty’s fate, why is it…”
The sect master finished for him, “Why is it that the karmic ties are broken, yet you are still alive, and living no differently than how you were before?”
Bai Li frowned and nodded.
The sect master chuckled, “Don’t you realize, Demon Lord? When Lord Sixth drank ‘Never Part,’ his soul and yours became connected. When he recreated the great array of the Hall of Demons and endured the lightning tribulation, naturally he transferred the karma onto himself. You no longer have anything to do with the previous dynasty.”
Bai Li’s fingers tightened. The sect master continued, “Lord Sixth is too hard-hearted, yet towards you alone, he is soft time and time again. From this, it can be seen that no matter his heaven-defying abilities, he is still a person. And if one is a person, they understand attachment, know anguish, sadness, and joy. As long as they have a thread of conscience left, no matter where it hangs, it’s enough to tug his heart.”
Bai Li mumbled, “Is that the reason he drank ‘Never Part?’”
The sect master replied, “Not entirely.”
Bai Li raised his eyes and asked, “How so?”
The sect master pointed at the wooden figure at his chest, “Lord Sixth copied what you did when you discarded your bloodline, splitting himself in two. He used the soul in his blood to nurture the astrolabe and left the wooden figurine to you, but perhaps… he wasn’t entirely confident that his feelings were deep as yours and worried that he might not be able to find you, so he borrowed the help of extraneous things.”
The sect master took a sip of tea, smacked his lips, tasting the fragrance, and smiled, “But didn’t this fool know that when he was scheming with all his wit, he no longer needed these things?”
After a moment of silence, Bai Li asked, “Then the bodhi wood… when can it get better?”
The sect master replied leisurely, “Don’t rush it. Even a body made from divine wood requires forty nine days to finish growing. Come to think of it, it should be around these couple days. Relax, if he’s willing, he’ll eventually bow his head to the divine tree.”
Bai Li chuckled bitterly, “He… when has he ever bowed his head?”
The sect master said slowly, “Do you really not know, Demon Lord, whether Lord Sixth has ever bowed his head?”
Right at that time, Bai Li suddenly felt something scorch the palm of his hand. He loosened his hand and looked astoundedly at the wooden figurine hanging at his chest; it glowed with light, then a wisp of ash flowed from it and out the window.
Bai Li abruptly got to his feet, knocking over a teacup and teapot, but hardly had time to care about that. He furiously sprinted after the mass of ash.
The sect master chuckled as he held his teacup and finished speaking the words that the youth had been too impatient to hear, “… Not to mention that though Lord Sixth is stubborn, he isn’t unreasonable. He’s always been amenable to coaxing but not coercion. It’s better to move his heart than try to press him down by hand. And yet there are so many people who don’t know, who insist on forcing him to do this and that. Of course they’ve provoked him.”
Legend had it that the divine Bodhi tree was the source of all life, that if one listened through a leaf, they could hear the sound of heaven. It could purify the soul of a corpse buried in its branches, sending them off to nirvana. Whittling the wood into bone, folding the leaves into flesh, watered with the blood of the living, it could return the dead to life, bearing a living soul with the spiritual energy of nature.
It was just that the one who willingly parted with their flesh and blood must whole-heartedly repent and suffer the pain of being torn asunder before they were able to return to their origin.
The moment that the ash within the wooden figurine entered the body made of the wood of the Bodhi tree and the blood-soaked astrolabe, the person on the icy slab suddenly began convulsing. That body was unlike the original, which seemed pained even when it smiled. It resembled how he was as a youth, long hands, long feet, thin and naive in a way particular to the young.
Bai Li had experienced that kind of pain before, so he went up and embraced him, restraining his thrashing limbs, enduring it as the newly revived person bit down on his hand. He only felt that there was an endless surge of hope welling out of those deep teeth marks.
He bit down for an entire night. His face was half stained by blood.
Shi Wuduan had only just calmed down. He felt like he’d just rolled down a mountain of knives and been tossed in a deep fryer. He was too exhausted to open his eyes. He chuckled weakly, his dimples full of mischief, and said unusually lightly, so softly it was almost inaudible, “Wife, this time… we’re… even now.”
Bai Li felt like a giant boulder had crashed down on his heart. He carefully held the person who’d just passed out again, yet now breathed, in his arms. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated on the sensation of his weak breaths puffing against his neck, as if he was listening to the most beautiful sound in the world.
Then he said, “En.”
Thus, stamping a seal on all the settled dust, sealing away all the yearning and separation, all the joys and sorrows….
He thought, we’ve finally returned.
🎵╰(´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)╯🎵
( 0 v 0 )/ !!
Joy 🤩
You’re amazing translator, for your dedication finishing this work. Bought me hours of tears and joy. Thank you so much ❤️👏🙏💐🧨
WAHHHHH FINALLYYYY AHHHHHHHHHH
THEYRE TOGETHER NOW!!!
♡＼(￣▽￣)／♡
Finally 😭😭😭 i feel so happy for them !
OMG 😭😭😭
Thank you so much for carrying this translation all the way to the finish line! You have my appreciation and admiration! ❤️❤️❤️