According to Yin Xiaoyang, five years ago, Immortal Feather Peak and indeed the entire Shangyang Continent had not yet fully recovered from the battle with Ten-Zhang Manor, so that year’s Immortal Feather Gathering had not been held as scheduled. This year’s gathering came a full ten years after the last one, and it was also the first time Immortal Feather Peak had opened its gates since Cen Yuchi’s execution, so everyone attached great importance to it.
Cen Yuchi’s feelings at this moment were extremely complicated. It was as if one second ago he had just been reduced to ashes at the Immortal Feather Gathering, and the next second someone was patting his face and shouting, “Wake up, it’s time to go to the Immortal Feather Gathering!”
Not a single gathering missed, and seamlessly connected at that.
“What’s with that expression?” Yin Xiaoyang suddenly asked, seeing that Cen Yuchi had been silent for a long while.
Cen Yuchi hadn’t actually noticed his own expression. Hearing this, he forced a smile and said, half-joking, “I was just thinking that with such a terrible temper as yours, you actually have friends.”
Yin Xiaoyang’s expression suddenly turned serious, and he said, looking somewhat complicated, “Not exactly a friend.” Then he asked, “Do you want to go?”
“What?” Cen Yuchi said.
“If you don’t want to go, you can get lost right now,” Yin Xiaoyang said.
Cen Yuchi finally realized what Yin Xiaoyang meant. He raised his hand to look, the golden ring was indeed gone.
“Thank you, Yin!”
Seeing Cen Yuchi overjoyed, Yin Xiaoyang didn’t look particularly pleased. He said, “I didn’t take it off. It was no longer on your hand after you came out of that mountain temple. I went back to look for it but couldn’t find it…” Here Yin Xiaoyang paused, then asked, “The Immortal Feather Gathering, aren’t you going?”
Cen Yuchi considered it carefully in his mind.
The Immortal Feather Gathering brought together heroes from all over, it was truly a good opportunity to quickly get a sense of the current situation. He might as well return to Immortal Feather Peak first to scout things out; it wouldn’t be too late to go back to Ten-Zhang Manor afterward. He said, “Then how about you take me along for the fun, Yin?”
Yin Xiaoyang rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself.”
Suddenly, voices came from outside. Yin Xiaoyang glanced out the window, then said to Cen Yuchi, “Stay lying here. I’ll go take a look.”
Listening to the voices outside, Cen Yuchi gathered that the lady of the house had prepared a meal to thank her benefactors, but the group of Young Immortals from Immortal Feather Peak were in a hurry to be on their way and had no intention of staying for the meal.
One young man’s voice caught Cen Yuchi’s attention, because while his companion was struggling to politely decline the enthusiastic hostess, he said very bluntly, “No time to eat. We leave now.” And then he added, “Not hungry anyway.”
Cen Yuchi got up and peered out through the window above the head of the bed. In the courtyard, besides Yin Xiaoyang, there stood three young people dressed in Immortal Feather Peak attire. One young man, wearing the robes of the Ding-character Formula, was wiping his sweat while forcing a smile and saying something to the hostess. There was also a man and a woman, the woman was of the Sheng-character Formula, the man of the Ling-character Mantra. The young man of the Ling-character Mantra had originally had his back to Cen Yuchi, but as if sensing his gaze, he suddenly turned his head and met Cen Yuchi’s eyes directly.
At the moment that person turned around, Cen Yuchi suddenly froze.
It was a face that seemed familiar to him, and yet utterly strange.
Cen Yuchi knew it was not Mu Linchuan. But it looked so much like him.
Seeing Cen Yuchi, the young man turned and walked toward his room instead. Cen Yuchi flipped back onto the bed, and sure enough, before long he saw the man walk in.
Up close, Cen Yuchi finally noticed that although this man looked very much like Mu Linchuan, his temperament was quite different. Mu Linchuan’s features were gentler curved brows, bright eyes, always looking spirited, with a smile usually on his face. This young man’s eyes, however, held a certain coldness, his brows slightly raised, his lips thin and jaw sharp, and his skin had an unhealthy pallor, as if he never saw the sun, making him appear far more severe.
And young, too.
Before Cen Yuchi could say anything, the young man spoke: “You’re going to Immortal Feather Peak?”
His face was severe, and his voice was just as cold.
Cen Yuchi nodded.
The young man glanced at the wound on Cen Yuchi’s chest, which had seeped a trace of fresh blood again from his earlier movement, then said with what seemed like impatience, “We leave in a quarter of an hour. I’m in a hurry.”
He really had no consideration for the injured.
Though Cen Yuchi thought this, he still nodded to show it was fine. But then he seemed to suddenly remember something, and immediately rose to his feet and said solemnly, “Wait! Before we leave, there’s one thing I need to do.”
Yin Xiaoyang saw Cen Yuchi walk out of the room looking pale, and hurried over in concern, then said angrily to the young man, “How could you let him come out like this?”
The young man said coldly, “You brought him here. He’s not my responsibility.” With that, he walked off to the side and found a seat.
Cen Yuchi quickly said to Yin Xiaoyang, “I came out on my own. I have some business with this lady.”
Seeing Cen Yuchi, the woman of the house hurried forward to support him and said with deep gratitude, “Immortal Master, my husband went to buy meat and will be back soon. Even if they won’t eat, you must stay and have at least a bite! If my Baozi made it back alive, it’s all thanks to you! I, I’ll have Baozi kowtow to you! I really don’t know how to thank you… At the very least, stay and heal your wounds here before you go. Look at that wound… Oh dear, it’s bleeding again!”
Seeing the woman like this, Cen Yuchi felt a twinge of guilt, because he knew the matter wasn’t over yet.
The woman was about to fetch things to treat his wound when Cen Yuchi stopped her and asked softly, “Sister, where is your younger brother?”
The woman seemed puzzled as to why he was asking about her brother, but she answered with a smile, “Oh, my brother? He’s close with my Baozi. After Baozi came back yesterday, he didn’t sleep a wink all night, running around taking care of him. He’s sleeping in the room right now. You’re looking for him? I’ll call him out right away.”
Cen Yuchi nodded, his expression grave.
Some things, sooner or later, must be faced after all.
Soon, a woman’s scream came from inside the room.
The Immortal Feather Peak disciples heard the sound and looked at each other in confusion even the severe young man turned his head to look at Cen Yuchi.
Cen Yuchi sighed and walked into the room with heavy steps. The woman was slumped at the bedside, shaking the man lying on the bed over and over but the man could no longer give the slightest response.
The woman muttered to herself: “This, what’s going on? No matter how I call him, he won’t wake up. He’s still breathing, but he just won’t wake up.” Seeing Cen Yuchi walk in, she turned and grabbed at his sleeve, pleading urgently: “Immortal Master, please look at my brother, what’s wrong with him? He won’t wake up no matter how I call him. He was fine just last night… Has he been possessed by something evil? Immortal Master, please save him!”
At that moment, the others from Immortal Feather Peak also came inside. The girl of the Sheng-character Formula stepped forward and probed the man’s spiritual consciousness, then shook her head and said, “There’s no saving him. It’s already dispersed.”
The woman froze, and tears streamed down her face.
“What do you mean? Huh? What’s happening? My brother was perfectly fine, how can he not wake up? Immortal Master, immortals, please save him! I’m begging you!” The room fell utterly silent, filled only with the woman’s anguished wailing.
Cen Yuchi said, “He was possessed by someone, who used him to lure your child into a trap and carry out his plan. Perhaps because that person’s spiritual consciousness was too powerful, it caused his own consciousness to scatter. Though his body still shows signs of life, he can no longer be saved. Your brother… may not have been himself for a long time now.”
The girl of the Sheng-character Formula seemed unable to bear the scene; she covered her face and ran out. The young man of the Ding-character Formula glanced at the young man of the Ling-character Mantra, as if seeking his consent. The Ling-character Mantra youth nodded, and the Ding-character Formula youth formed a finger seal, as if preparing to do something to the man lying on the bed.
At the sight of this, the woman suddenly lunged forward, shoving the Ding-character Formula youth aside and throwing herself over the man on the bed, weeping and crying out: “What are you going to do to him?”
The Ding-character Formula youth sighed. “He is already dead. Keeping this empty shell will only add to the suffering of the living.”
The woman shook her head wildly, sobbing uncontrollably yet insisting, over and over: “He’s not dead. He’s still fine. He’ll wake up…”
The Ding-character Formula youth seemed about to continue, when the Ling-character Mantra youth suddenly said, “Forget it. Let’s go.”
As the group walked into the courtyard, Yin Xiaoyang suddenly called out to stop the Ling-character Mantra youth.
“Mu Linyuan, why did you stop Su Yuan? This goes against the rules.”
Hearing the name, Cen Yuchi felt no surprise, he had already guessed. The only person who could look so strikingly similar to Mu Linchuan was his younger brother, the boy born at the Immortal Feather Gathering twenty-five years ago, at that blazing noon: Mu Linyuan.
Mu Linyuan stopped in his tracks. He stretched out a hand, and a single drop of water fell into his palm, icy cold.
“The world is foolish. Knowing full well there is no hope, they still cling to it.”
A light rain began to fall in a fine drizzle, shrouding the small mountain town in a landscape of sorrow.
“And yet…”
Who among us is not the same?
The people on the road walked silently through the rain. A middle-aged man, clutching a bulging oil-paper package to his chest, hurried forward at a run as if pressed by some urgent matter, looking somewhat out of place in this lingering rain. Just as he brushed past a group of young people dressed in matching robes, he suddenly stopped, as if remembering something.
He looked back. Those young men were all unfamiliar faces, and judging by their attire, they seemed to be cultivators from prestigious sects. Strange cultivators rarely appeared in a small village like theirs. Perhaps they were just passing through, he thought, then turned and stepped back into the rain.
No one stopped, because everyone knew that once this rain passed, everything that had happened here would be forgotten.
Only the pain truly left on their bodies, the fear hidden deep in their hearts, and the vibrant lives that had been lost would leave forever-grotesque scars upon people’s hearts, slowly eating into the bone.
But eventually, the rain would stop and the sky would clear.