Song Huaiyan pressed his groggy head; his legs still felt somewhat weak.
This was the sleeping powder he had given to Shen Yu a few days ago.
To think that this obedient and silent junior brother had also learned these sneaky tricks!
I have only myself to blame for setting such a poor example as a senior brother.
Fortunately, in order to bring Shen Yu along into the Samsara Realm earlier, he had bound a “Thousand-Machine Thread” to him. Through the thread’s sensory link, he discovered that the place Shen Yu had gone to turned out to be the Hall of Affairs!
When Song Huaiyan rushed to the Hall of Affairs, he saw that the barrier at the entrance had indeed been tampered with. Following the way all the way to the underground secret chamber, Song Huaiyan ignited a talisman paper and approached the profound coffin step by step. The “clanging” sound of chains rubbing together grew increasingly clear.
He saw Shen Yu curled up in a corner of the coffin lid, his limbs bound by chains that emitted a faint, eerie glow. They were made of special cold iron, capable of locking away one’s surrounding spiritual power as well.
Shen Yu was still wearing the straight-collared, cross-opening Hanfu from earlier in the day, leaning against the coffin wall with his back facing him. His hair was disheveled, covering most of his face, and his shoulder blades trembled from heavy, ragged breaths.
“A-Yu…” Song Huaiyan leaned down and softly called out to him.
Shen Yu’s tightly closed eyelashes trembled, and his hands clutching the chains quivered. A rough, hoarse “gurgling” sound came from deep within his throat.
“Get… get away!” he rasped, his expression growing increasingly frantic. He struggled violently, yet as if exercising extreme restraint, the skin on his wrists and ankles broke and bled from the friction of the iron shackles.
Song Huaiyan’s eyes flashed once more with the image of Shen Yu roaring as he pushed him away in the illusion array of Beilang Mountain. He leaped into the coffin, trying to grab his wrists to keep him from grinding out more bloody gashes through his struggling.
“Shen Yu,” he called his name, his voice carrying a tremor he hadn’t even noticed.
Shen Yu resisted like a madman. Though most of his spiritual power was sealed by the cold iron, his physical prowess remained. Song Huaiyan wrestled with him inside the coffin for a long time before barely managing to subdue him.
Dratting astride Shen Yu, he held his hands crossed down, carefully avoiding the bleeding wounds. He brushed away the messy, sweat-dampened strands of hair clinging to his forehead, tapped his finger against Shen Yu’s spiritual platform, and channeled a gentle wave of spiritual power inward.
Shen Yu’s brow twitched. He half-opened his eyes and met Song Huaiyan’s gaze, though his own look seemed to fall upon something very far away. His lips, bitten raw and bloody, moved, but no sound came out.
“Does it hurt very much?” Song Huaiyan’s voice was soft and hoarse.
Shen Yu seemed stunned for a long time without answering, then slowly closed his eyes as if he had lapsed into unconsciousness.
Song Huaiyan let him go and slowly let out a breath. His chest felt heavy and ached fiercely, as if being ground down inch by inch by iron chains.
He fetched clean water and washed away the dripping blood from the raw wounds on Shen Yu’s wrists and ankles.
So this was how those overlapping new and old wounds came to be.
In the past, would he also go berserk like this, would he also lock himself away like this?
What on earth had Shen Yu experienced over these years? Why had he… become like this?
Biting his lip, Song Huaiyan carefully bandaged the wounds and neatly arranged Shen Yu’s scattered hair and robes.
Shen Yu remained restless even in unconsciousness; his brow was tightly furrowed, and his body spasmed from time to time as if enduring immense agony. When touched, his entire frame would tremble even more violently.
Daring not make any excessive movements, Song Huaiyan could only lie down on his side beside him, radiating spiritual power to nourish and soothe him.
At this moment, all was quiet and still. The moonlight was like water, shining in from the hexagonal water well and projecting a thin, hazy, bright shadow through the water column—frost-like, silver-like, dreamlike and illusory.
Pillowing his head on the moonlight refracted into the profound coffin, Song Huaiyan slowly recalled the moonlight of Yunzhou. The moons of the two worlds clearly looked the same, yet the one falling upon him was no longer the same piece.
Cangxuan Sect experienced snow year-round, so the moon was rarely seen. When he first transmigrated to Yunzhou, because he was recuperating from a severe illness and didn’t have to attend the sect’s morning and evening classes, he would climb to the highest point of Wujin Peak every single day.
There was a thousand-year-old pine tree on the edge of the cliff. He would sit there, looking at the distant mountains, the high and vast firmament, the abyss at the bottom of the valley, and the occasional hawk flying past. Until heavy snow covered him from head to toe, he would shrink his cold, stiff body and walk step by step down the mountain, only to continue the next day.
On a few rare occasions, when the snow stopped for a moment and the clouds parted, he would have the fortune to catch a glimpse of a lone moon in the distant sky.
Ten thousand mountains laden with snow, a bright moon skimming lightly over them.
So bright and yet so cold. Clearly perched upon such a high snow-capped mountain, the moon seemed even more distant and removed from the mortal world than ever.
Then one day, he heard a crisp, cold voice behind him coming from the air.
“If you jump off here, you’ll die a very ugly death.”
He turned his head and saw a young swordsman in white, looking only around ten or eleven years old with fair skin, handsome features, and a long sword strapped to his back. The moonlight cast a thin layer of frost over him, as if he were completely isolated from the mortal dust.
He opened his mouth to say something, but found he didn’t know how to defend himself.
During those days, he truly had thought about dying.
Every single day here felt like waking up from a great dream, yet feeling as though he were still trapped within one. He remembered pushing a little girl who ran a red light out of the way on a street; the next moment when he opened his eyes, he wasn’t on an operating table, nor in the netherworld, but inside an unfamiliar ancient dwelling. The people dressed in strange garments told him his name was Song Yan, and that he was the eldest disciple of Muzhangfeng, the master of Cangyun Sect. He had just survived a critical, life-threatening illness against all odds.
He had no memories of the original Song Yan, knew nothing of his life experiences, and was completely unfamiliar with this world. He was a lonely wandering ghost possessing a borrowed corpse, with no idea what identity he should use to keep living. Meanwhile, in the other world, his parents had died early, and his maternal grandmother had raised him through countless hardships, only to face the ultimate sorrow of a white-haired person sending off a black-haired one.
Sitting at the pinnacle of the mountain peaks, he would also wonder: if he died once more in this world, could he return to his original world? But what if he couldn’t? Then the Song Yan of this world would die yet another time in the hearts of the people who cared about him.
He didn’t know whether he should gamble on an unknown life or death.
Hesitating for a long time without knowing how to answer, the young swordsman walked coldly to the edge of the cliff. Without looking at him, he said lightly, “This is where I practice my sword. You’re blocking the way.”
“Ah… I… I’m sorry.” He felt rather embarrassed on the spot.
The young swordsman looked into the distance and asked instead, “Do you want to go down and take a look?”
Song Huaiyan was startled: “What?”
The long sword behind the young swordsman suddenly flew out, spun in midair, and horizontally hovered right before their feet.
“I’ll take you sword-flying.” His voice was cold and calm.
Song Huaiyan knew that sword-flying was possible in this world, and perhaps the original Song Yan could do it too, but he couldn’t remember. Besides, he actually had a bit of a fear of heights.
Yet after struggling for a moment, he still nodded and asked carefully, “Is it okay?”
The young swordsman glanced sideways at him, stepped lightly onto the sword, and said coolly, “Get on.”
He reached out a hand toward him.
Song Huaiyan stepped onto the flying sword in a trance-like daze.
The two of them descended on the flying sword. The bright moonlight spilled over the rolling white snow, illuminating the surrounding wilderness as bright as day. The biting cold wind whipped past his face, though surprisingly it wasn’t piercingly sharp. Although they were flying downward, he felt the magnificence of the poet Li Bai’s lines: “The roc rises with the wind in a single day, soaring up ninety thousand miles.” It was a transcendence of worldly dust, a carefree spirit where the mind follows the long wind and roams the nine heavens.
This was his first time flying on a sword. The sensation of standing suspended in mid-air with nothing to lean on made his heart flutter with panic. Although a bit embarrassing, he couldn’t help quietly grabbing onto the hem of the boy’s robe from behind.
The small boy stood steady as a mountain on the flying sword, his posture upright. He neither looked back nor spoke, resembling a snow-sculpted statue, silent and resolute.
He felt his frantic heartbeat slowly synchronize with the hum of the sword, and the sound of the wind by his ear gradually grew soft.
As their altitude decreased, the temperature of the valley gradually rose. The river below rushed forward like a wild horse broken free from its reins, surging endlessly. Between the mountain ranges on both sides, large expanses of peach forests loomed in the nocturnal shadows, petals scattering with the wind in a dreamlike and illusory display, possessing a unique charm.
Song Huaiyan had never imagined that beneath the snow-covered Luochun Mountain, such a pocket of springtime scenery lay hidden.
A quarter of an hour later, the two returned to the mountain peak. Song Huaiyan jumped off the flying sword, gasping heavily for breath, his legs still feeling a bit weak. Regulating his heartbeat, he said slowly, “Thank you…”
The boy withdrew his sword without answering. Song Huaiyan hesitated and added, “Sorry, I won’t disturb your sword practice anymore from now on.”
He forgot how he had hurriedly run down the mountain afterwards; he only remembered that the moonlight that night was very bright, stretching the path down the mountain out very long.
After that day, using his illness and amnesia as an excuse, and with the consent of his master, he returned to the Hall of Mirrors to study once more, starting from the most basic knowledge and cultivation techniques to re-walk the eighteen years of Song Yan’s life.
After understanding the theories and rules of this world, he discovered that those marvelous immortal arts and formations were actually just a form of “technology.” It was simply that all these technologies relied on the abundant spiritual energy and unique operational laws of energy in this world, and were also related to each individual’s physical constitution. By cultivating techniques suited to one’s own physique, absorbing and transforming the spiritual energy of heaven and earth into spiritual power, one could unleash various spells and sword moves.
The original Song Yan was the eldest disciple of the sect master and originally ranked among the top tier of disciples, though his poor health in recent years had delayed his cultivation progress. Yet his aptitude should also be considered top-notch, and coupled with the accumulation of all these years still remaining, Song Huaiyan worked day and night with diligent progress, taking nearly half a year to roughly restore half of his former cultivation.
He had also secretly snuck up to Wujin Peak a few times, finding that the white-clad young swordsman was always practicing his sword by the cliff edge, diligent day after day without ever slackening. Daring not draw close, he could only quietly watch from behind the camellia bushes on the distant mountain.
In fact, he had come the very next day after his sword flight. Standing there, he discovered two foot-print-sized spots near the camellias that differed from the soft snow around them they were patches of snow that had been packed solid through repeated stepping.
So, during all those previous days, the boy had stood right here, watching from afar, choosing to tolerate over and over again the “little thief” who had occupied his territory, and ultimately guiding him out of his lost and confused life at that time.
It was also after that day that he learned that the only residents living on Wujin Peak, aside from the sect master, were his youngest disciple, Shen Yu. Everyone said that the younger junior brother possessed extremely high natural talent and was deeply favored by the sect master, yet his temperament was cold, arrogant, aloof, and capricious.
Yet he felt that despite looking cold on the outside, the younger junior brother was actually a gentle person on the inside.