Duan Junyi’s mind went completely blank, his capacity to think nearly shutting down entirely as he acted purely on instinct, pulling Sang Hua tightly into his arms.
“You’re throwing your life away.”
In that split second, Duan Junyi was truly panicked. Incapable of paying heed to any of the surrounding chaos, he rapidly sealed the acupoints around Sang Hua’s wound to stanch the bleeding, carrying him away from Fuweimen with arrogant swagger.
Seeing this, Chang Lin immediately gave chase, blocking Duan Junyi’s path: “Little beast, put Sang Hua down!”
“In your dreams!” Tightening his hold around Sang Hua’s waist and pressing the man closely against his body, Duan Junyi unleashed the full, unsuppressed force of his murderous intent toward Chang Lin who dared bar his way.
The person in his arms stirred slightly. Lowering his gaze, Duan Junyi saw Sang Hua weakly clutching his lapel, speaking in a faint whisper: “A-Yi, don’t hurt anyone else.”
“Hmph!” Though dissatisfaction marred Duan Junyi’s features, he nevertheless reined in his murderous aura, stowed away his longsword, and swept Sang Hua up horizontally into his arms. He spoke coldly to Chang Lin: “The Immortal Venerable is in this seat’s hands now. If any of you dare block my path again, this seat will break him right here and now.”
With Sang Hua injured, Duan Junyi had zero mental leisure to spar with them any further. Leaving Jing Li and Chong Huai behind to stall the immortal cultivators, he carried Sang Hua away from Fuweimen himself.
By the time they returned to the Dome, Sang Hua had already lapsed into unconsciousness. Duan Junyi immediately summoned the flower demon Liuhua to treat Sang Hua’s injuries.
Upon examining Sang Hua’s condition, Liuhua’s brows furrowed instantly into a deep, heavy frown, dragging Duan Junyi down into renewed anxiety with him: “How is he?”
Marking the first time he had ever witnessed Duan Junyi display such nervous tension, Liuhua answered truthfully: “Reporting to Lord Jun, the Immortal Venerable’s sword wound missed vital points and is not fatal. However, the residual lightning breath left behind in the wake of the thunder punishment is coursing through his meridians, which will cause his meridians to snap inch by inch. As long as the lightning breath remains, the sword wound cannot be treated either.”
Dropping her eyelids, Liuhua wore an expression of self-reproach: “Liuhua’s cultivation is shallow and unable to dissolve the lightning breath. Please forgive me, Lord Jun.”
With Duan Junyi’s level of cultivation, dissolving the lightning breath was by no means difficult. What worried him right now was that Sang Hua remained unconscious and unable to regulate his breathing, leaving him completely incapable of protecting his own heart meridian with true qi. If Duan Junyi used his own true qi to forcefully dissolve the lightning breath while Sang Hua lacked the breath control to safeguard his heart, it would likely cause his meridians to rupture completely, destroying his cultivation base entirely.
Sensing Duan Junyi’s distress, before he could even voice a question, Liuhua proactively slit her own wrist, blending her ink-green blood into a medicinal pill which she offered to Duan Junyi: “Lord Jun, using my blood as an ingredient in the medicine can protect the Immortal Venerable’s heart meridian. Lord Jun can safely dissolve the lightning breath thereafter.”
Her face turned pale from blood loss, yet Duan Junyi’s expression filled with gratitude: “Thank you for your hard trouble, go rest now.”
Before departing, Liuhua did not forget to leave the external trauma ointment on the table. Possessing a meticulous mind, even though she knew little of Duan Junyi, she could perceive just how deeply he cared for Sang Hua.
After feeding the medicinal pill to Sang Hua, Duan Junyi channeled his true qi into Sang Hua’s meridians with utmost care, searching out the rampaging lightning breath lingering within Sang Hua’s body with the gentlest possible approach.
Sang Hua had endured forty-seven heavenly lightning bolts, meaning forty-seven strands of residual lightning breath were currently coursing through his body. To ensure Sang Hua suffered no further harm, the lightning breath had to be dissolved away slowly, strand by strand. Even with Duan Junyi exercising extreme caution, the precise moment each strand of lightning breath was dissolved, the unconscious Sang Hua still let out a suppressed cry of pain.
“Mm…”
The sound was exceptionally, infinitely faint. Had Duan Junyi not kept his attention locked fixedly on Sang Hua’s reactions, he might never have noticed it at all. Yet just that single tiny sound struck like a heavy blow against Duan Junyi’s heart.
Before others, Sang Hua always appeared like a boulder that nothing in the world could ever knock down; no matter how severe his injuries, he invariably remained silent, enduring even the forty-seven heavenly lightning bolts upon the execution platform without uttering a single half-sound.
Yet Duan Junyi understood him intimately, knowing he was most terrified of pain. Only in this state of blurred consciousness would he momentarily cast aside all his heavy burdens and reveal his most vulnerable, authentic self.
Halting his search for the next strand of lightning breath, Duan Junyi pulled Sang Hua into his embrace, soothing him softly just as Sang Hua used to soothe him in the past: “Master, I’m here, I’m right here. It’ll be over soon, just bear with it a little longer.”
The tender pacification yielded a degree of effect. Seeing Sang Hua’s expression smooth out slightly, Duan Junyi resumed using his true qi to hunt down the next strand of lightning breath, his movements growing even gentler as he monitored Sang Hua’s reactions every single second.
With the remaining forty-six strands of lightning breath, no matter how tenderly Duan Junyi maneuvered, by the time every single trace of lightning breath was completely dissolved, Sang Hua was soaked from head to toe in cold sweat from the excruciating agony.
Once the most troublesome lightning breath had been cleared away, only the external injuries remained. All the heavenly lightning bolts had struck squarely across Sang Hua’s back; by now, the garments covering his back were completely soaked through with blood. Without even unbuckling his robes, one could easily imagine that the flesh across Sang Hua’s back was torn and mangled beyond recognition.
Duan Junyi intended to undress Sang Hua to wash the wounds and apply medicine, but his movements paused momentarily when he reached the belt buckle.
Sang Hua habitually wore white robes because white symbolized purity, loftiness, and detachment. Tied around his waist was a single red cord virtually the sole splash of color across his entire person.
That square-victory knot (fang sheng jie) woven with red tassels, Duan Junyi remembered weaving it long, long ago on Yujin Peak when he was bored out of his mind, jokingly telling his master to wear it always so that no matter where he went, smooth sailing would accompany him.
A joke from the distant past, yet Sang Hua still kept that square-victory knot tied around his waist to this day.
Back then, he had only told Sang Hua that the square-victory knot symbolized smooth sailing, failing to tell him its other implied significance: two hearts beating as one, minds and souls intertwined in complete resonance.
After tending to the wounds on Sang Hua’s body, Duan Junyi still untied the square-victory knot from Sang Hua’s belt.
Beneath the crushing weight of his severe injuries, Sang Hua’s naturally fair skin appeared even more starkly pale. Duan Junyi leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to those lips drained of every trace of color.
“Master, if you had pierced me with a sword before all those immortals, granting their wish, you would still be the universally revered Immortal Venerable.”
“You must stay well, so that I can find the courage to sink eternally into the path of Ashura. Having this disciple travel the path of no return is more than enough.”
Only when Sang Hua’s consciousness was blurred, unable to see him or hear his words, did Duan Junyi summon the courage to bare the emotions he kept deeply buried at the bottom of his heart.
The person was right before his eyes; stretching out a hand was enough to pull him entirely into his embrace. Yet Duan Junyi had lost his former reckless, devil-may-care courage, not even daring to linger with extra glances.
Fearing that the desires festering within his heart would grow wild and spiral entirely beyond his control.
“I can’t keep thinking like this.”
Duan Junyi struck a fierce slap across his own face to jolt his mind clear, fleeing the room in haste.
Catching sight of Duan Junyi emerging from the room with an unreadable expression, Chong Huai and Jing Li who had been bickering in the courtyard instantly silenced themselves, not daring to act presumptuously before Duan Junyi.
Having spent a considerable length of time by Duan Junyi’s side, both men recognized that his temper was mercurial and unpredictable; thus, their ability to read subtle expressions and gauge moods was quite sharp.
However, Duan Junyi merely swept a cold, indifferent glance over them, speaking with a deadpan tone of command: “Watch the person inside well. When he wakes up, have Liuhua brew his medicine and bring him whatever he wants to eat, under one condition: he is not allowed to leave Yaotai Mirror.”
Duan Junyi proceeded straight to his private subterranean chamber, retrieving the longsword hidden within its sword case to meticulously polish its blade.
Inscribed upon the sword body were two characters: Liuchu (Six Exits) its given name.
Although Liuchu remained concealed within its sword case, its sharpness was guaranteed to be no whit inferior to Sang Hua’s Feibai, nor to Wugui which he carried presently.
Finally, Duan Junyi unfastened the sword tassel from Liuchu‘s hilt, along with the cord from his own waist, placing them side by side with the cord unknotted from Sang Hua’s waist.
Three cords a double-butterfly knot, a never-parting knot (bu xiang li jie), and the square-victory knot from Sang Hua’s waist. All three cords had been woven by him during past moments of leisure, each silently bearing testimony to just how unbridled and reckless his former self had been.
Gazing down at these three cords alongside the Liuchu sword, Duan Junyi fell into a trance, wondering if he had not acted with such lawless audacity back then, Sang Hua might never have found himself trapped in such a agonizing dilemma as he was today.
In truth, he had arrived in this world a hundred years ago. His original world was entirely different from this one a realm once bustling and prosperous, filled with towering skyscrapers and a civilization far more advanced than this era. Yet one day, that world was struck by a zombie apocalypse, plunging into an era of doom.
The high-tech advancements humanity took such pride in had been rendered useless overnight by the arrival of the apocalypse. People could only rely on the most primitive means to combat the surging hordes of zombies, fleeing and striving for self-preservation through the most basic, archaic methods.
The one thing least worthy of trust in the apocalypse was human nature; once the end of the world arrived, humanity vanished entirely, leaving every individual driven solely by the desire to survive by any means necessary.
Within that world, Duan Junyi had been an utterly ordinary person, devoid of superhuman intelligence or formidable physical conditioning. He was simply one face among the vast multitudes, with no inkling of how he had managed to survive the apocalyptic massacres until the moment he was burned to death by subterranean hell-fires.
His body reduced to floating ash by the fires, he had assumed his life ended right there. Yet in the blink of an eye, he discovered he had transformed into a little child.
Even upon regaining consciousness, what met his eyes was still a pack of zombies tearing frantically at one another. After transforming into a child, his tiny arms and legs had been hidden inside a cabinet by someone; peering through the crack of the doors, he could watch zombies running rampant outside. Fortunately, the zombies failed to notice there was still a living person hiding inside the cabinet.
“Looks like fate is playing a joke on me. Being burned to death once wasn’t enough; I have to go through it all over again.”
Escaping a horde of zombies in a child’s body was a mathematical impossibility; at that juncture, his will to live had evaporated completely. Having died once already, and knowing death awaited him in the end anyway, dying a second time was no big deal.
While he lay wallowing in self-abandonment, the cabinet door was suddenly flung open. A figure clad in white robes, immaculate and unstained by dust, stood bathed in the pristine moonlight streaming down upon him. At that exact moment, he understood that the descriptions of unworldly elegance penned in books were no deception.
With a warm, handsome smile hanging upon his lips, that person extended a clean, untainted pair of hands toward him: “It’s safe now. Are you willing to come with me?”