The morning light dyed the stone steps of Mount Xuanyue into a honey color, a youth dressed in coarse cloth and hemp clothes looked up at the cloud-and-mist-shrouded mountain peak, his hand clutching a bag of dry rations trembling slightly.
Beside the mountain path, the stream water tinkled, and the peach blossoms flanking the banks rustled down onto his shoulders.
“This place should be Mount Xuanyue, right,” the youth said.
Before his voice could fade, a foul wind suddenly surged through the forest, and the crisp sound of snapping dry branches pierced through the morning mist.
Abruptly, not far away, an evil spirit with a green face and protruding fangs, enveloped in a rotten stench, pounced forward.
The youth’s pupils contracted violently, and he staggered, falling to sit on the ground.
Ghost claws as sharp as fingernails brushed past his throat, barely missing him.
At the critical moment between life and death, the corner of a black robe arrived like an inked butterfly dancing gracefully.
They saw that figure channel spiritual energy into his fingertips, the instant a silver flash passed, the evil spirit let out a miserable shriek, transforming into green smoke and dissolving in the morning light.
Shattered stones splashed near the youth’s feet, he trembled all over as he raised his head, directly meeting a pair of smiling peach-blossom eyes.
The youth in black clothing looked down at him, the stray hairs in front of his forehead lifted by the mountain wind, revealing a jade-like side profile, the silver patterns on his collar rippling with a faint light under the sun.
“Are you all right,” the youth in black asked, his voice clear and bright like a ringing spring, carrying the unique vigor of a young person.
Hearing these words, the youth’s violently heaving chest gradually calmed down, yet he still remained dazed on the spot.
The person before him had long eyelashes like butterfly wings, his lip color was three fractional points more vivid than the peach blossoms behind him, yet a trace of heroic spirit was carried between his brows, beautifully making it impossible for people to shift their eyes away.
The youth quickly came back to his senses, awkwardly supporting himself against the ground to climb to his feet, hurriedly patting his hem that was stained with dust, his voice trembling when he spoke, “Thank you, Young Master, for saving my life, Just now that method of subduing demons and eliminating monsters, dare I ask if you are a cultivator of the Xuanyue Sect,”
Hearing this, the youth in black froze for a few seconds.
Ling Rong gazed at the youth’s expectant look, and then lowered his eyes, a cultivator of the Xuanyue Sect,
He used to be one, right.
It was just that, he had long become the person accused by thousands of fingers in the immortal gates.
A hundred years ago, after Ling Rong died in the Demon Locking Tower, his soul fell into the underworld.
However, because there was no immortal bone inside Ling Rong’s body, in essence, he was not much different from a mortal.
Therefore, his soul did not turn into ashes and vanish like those of the immortal families, instead, he followed the established rules, drifting toward the underworld, waiting to be reincarnated and enter the path of samsara.
Yet he stayed in the underworld for a hundred years, without ever entering the cycle of reincarnation.
Because, the obsession in the depths of his heart was too deep.
By the banks of the River of Forgetfulness, the tinkling sound of Meng Po’s soup bowls colliding became the most piercing sound during the century.
When the one-hundred-and-eighth bowl of medicinal soup entered his throat, Ling Rong still clearly remembered the appearance of Wen Pinglan killing Qing Gui with his own hands.
When the two-hundred-hundredth bowl of medicinal soup entered his throat, he remembered the gentleness of the peach blossoms all over the sky falling onto his Master’s hem on Mount Xuanyue.
Those memories were like poisoned vines, growing wildly in the deepest part of his soul, tightly wrapping him around the corner of the Rebirth Platform.
Even if he drank all the water from the River of Forgetfulness, he could not forget the past events of his previous life.
Unable to forget the past events of his previous life, he could not enter reincarnation.
The century in the underworld was three fractional points more bone-eroding than the confinement of the Demon Locking Tower.
Whenever the morning bell of the human world came from the Home-Viewing Pavilion, Ling Rong would curl up among the cluster of Lycoris flowers, watching the newborn souls carrying the fragments of their past lives drift toward reincarnation.
The pads of his fingers had long been worn into bloodstains on the stones of the River of Forgetfulness, and his spiritual energy condensed into a blade amidst the torment day after day.
When he witnessed the flowing light fall into the well of reincarnation for the thousandth time, he finally made his choice, using his broken soul as a catalyst, and his spiritual energy as a blade, violently tearing open the barrier of the underworld.
Amidst the permeating blood mist, Ling Rong fell into the human world.
The sound of the pine waves unique to Mount Xuanyue mixed with the scent of morning dew rushed at his face, causing him to fall into a daze, thinking he had returned to a hundred years ago.
After pulling back his thoughts, Ling Rong let out a light laugh, “I am nothing more than a rogue cultivator. Wandering for a hundred years, I always felt it was boring, I heard that Mount Xuanyue is abundant in spiritual energy, therefore I wished to come look for a resting place.”
“So that is how it is,” the youth’s eyes lit up, curiously approaching by two steps, the corner of his clothes still stained with the mud from when he fell down just now, “dare I ask your honorable surname and great name, Young Master,”
The morning mist in the mountains condensed into tiny water droplets on the tips of his hair, swaying gently along with his movements.
“Ah Rong.” Ling Rong avoided the youth’s searching gaze, looking at the cascading mountain ranges in the distance.
He did not dare to report his full name.
“A single name with the character Rong,” the youth tilted his head to size him up, “I have never heard such a special name before,”
“Yes.” Ling Rong responded.
“My name is Jiang Ruansheng. The Ruansheng from the line, Ruan Sheng was anciently wild and expressive, escaping the world in silence without a word.” the youth said.
“It is a good name.” Ling Rong nodded, hearing these words from the youth, he always felt this youth should be a scholar.
Yet the youth’s clothing was very ragged, no matter how one looked at it, he did not seem like someone who could afford to study.
After finishing reporting their names to each other, the two fell into a bit of silence.
Jiang Ruansheng suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence, “Right, I seem to have heard my elders mention before, a hundred years ago there was a notoriously infamous demon, whose name also had the character Rong in it,”
Ling Rong’s face stiffened.
“What was he called again,” Jiang Ruansheng wrinkled his brows in thought, suddenly his eyes lit up, “Ling Rong, Right, he was called Ling Rong, I heard he had no respect for his elders, betrayed his master and destroyed the path, doing every bad thing that could possibly be done,”
Jiang Ruansheng spoke with rising excitement, completely failing to notice that the face of the person opposite him was becoming increasingly gloomy.
Returning good with evil,
How interesting.
Ling Rong clearly had not expected that the youth he kindly saved would actually speak ill of him right to his face,
“But fortunately that demon died in the Demon Locking Tower a hundred years ago, it is truly gratifying,”
The mountain wind rolled up a few petals of peach blossoms, falling onto Ling Rong’s shoulder.
He gazed at the youth’s completely unguarded smile, suddenly remembering that two hundred years ago, he had also followed behind his Master innocently and naively like this.
The taste of blood surging into his throat was forced down by him ruthlessly, a trace of a self-deprecating smile hooked from the corner of his mouth, and he echoed, “Is that so, That is truly, deserving of his death.”
Jiang Ruansheng belatedly gazed at Ling Rong’s suddenly cooled face, the tips of his ears instantly burning red, hurriedly scratching the back of his head to make amends with a smile, “Oh dear, did I say something wrong, Please do not take it to heart, Young Master.”
His toes shifted uneasily against the stone steps, and he said, “How could you and that demon be compared, People say that the appearance is born from the heart, you are born so gentle and elegant like jade, and when saving me you were willing to risk your life to block in front of the evil spirit, your heart is who knows how many times softer than the demon in the rumors,”
The youth spoke at a very fast pace, deeply afraid that the other party was truly annoyed, and by the time he finished speaking, even the back of his ears was flushed with a thin red, acting exactly like a white rabbit anxious to explain.
Just as he was speaking, his eyes suddenly lit up, “Speaking of which, Young Master’s skill in eliminating spirits just now is much more powerful than those cultivators of the Xuanyue Sect who pride themselves on being the righteous path,”
Ling Rong gazed at the youth’s pure smiling face, his voice unconsciously softening, “You flatter me. Since there is nothing else, let us continue on our way.”
“How can that do,” Jiang Ruansheng immediately objected, “Young Master saved my life, I have not properly thanked you yet, How about, I treat Young Master to some peach blossom cakes, The shop at the foot of the mountain is very famous,”
Without allowing any explanation, he grabbed Ling Rong’s sleeve, completely failing to notice the other party’s stiff posture all over his body.
Ling Rong lowered his head to look at the youth’s hand grabbing him, in his memory, his Master had also pulled him like this to practice the sword.
A familiar sharp pain rippled through his chest, and as if possessed by a ghost, he nodded his head, “Very well.”