(20)
His mind went completely blank, and his body somehow obeyed the other man’s command, acting on its own. It wasn’t until he reached halfway down the mountain that Jiang Xing snapped back to his senses, the icy coldness in his limbs returning to their usual temperature.
Why on earth should he listen to Zishu Bai and leave just because he said so?
He had truly lost his mind. Just now, Jiang Xing actually had the absurd delusion that if he didn’t leave immediately, the consequences would be dire—much like a wild beast’s sense of danger. At that moment, nothing was left in his brain except the pure instinct to run.
Thinking carefully about it, with Zishu Bai’s soft, easily bullied temperament, what could he possibly do to him?
Jiang Xing gritted his teeth, an unspeakable sense of humiliation surging over him the more he thought about it. If he could do it over, he would definitely curse back! Who the hell did Zishu Bai think he was to speak to him like that? Who did he think he was?
He couldn’t possibly think that just because Jiang Xing admitted they were friends earlier, he had the right to order him around and interfere with his choices, right?
Furious, Jiang Xing kicked the tree in front of him hard, kicking it several times in a row before finally blowing off some of his dark frustration.
He really wasn’t the same kind of person as that idiot.
In Zishu Bai’s world, perhaps the concept of despair didn’t even exist. He was always full of confidence in himself, believing he could change terrible situations and bring salvation to everyone—naïve and innocent to a laughable degree.
That idiot’s life had been far too smooth—so smooth that he just happened to be able to resolve every problem. Heavens never made things hard for him; even in a desperate situation, it would always leave a ray of hope for him.
They were completely different people with diametrically opposed personalities.
Zishu Bai hated demons and monsters the most, and deeply loathed those who would harm the innocent.
Jiang Xing, on the other hand, liked or disliked things entirely based on his mood; if he loathed someone, he would try every sinister and ruthless method imaginable to torment them.
When it came down to it, they weren’t suitable to be friends at all. Their values were fundamentally at odds, and neither was the type to compromise their principles for the other. They were fated to walk together for only a short stretch before quickly arriving at a fork in their paths, going their separate ways.
So what if they went their separate ways? He didn’t care. At worst, they’d turn into enemies, and he would go back to playing his role as a cannon-fodder villain.
Leaning against the tree with suppressed rage, Jiang Xing looked up at the mountain peak. He refused to go back to protect those townspeople—what could Zishu Bai do to him? Kill him? Did that dead saint even have the guts?
Before long, the twisting, crawling swarms of snakes seemed to gradually thin out. An inexplicable panic crept into Jiang Xing’s heart. He hadn’t expected Zishu Bai to suppress Qingzhu to such an extent; wouldn’t that mean his plan had ended before it even started?
Just as he was about to do something, the sound of air being split echoed from behind him.
“You scoundrel, stop right there!”
Jiang Xing paused, turned around, and as expected, it was Lu Buyun rushing over.
In a fit of uncontrollable rage, Lu Buyun clamped down on Jiang Xing’s throat, slamming him hard onto the ground, and demanded in a heavy voice, “What have you done?!”
The pressure of a Golden Core cultivator was indeed extraordinary; those few angry roars alone shook the forest so hard that birds scattered in all directions.
Yet Jiang Xing stared up at him, sneering without a trace of fear. “The great hero has arrived! Came to sacrifice yourself to Lord Qingzhu? How convenient—Lord Qingzhu is starving right now, hurry up and go fill his belly!”
With just a few simple words, Lu Buyun gnashed his teeth in hatred, wishing he could kill Jiang Xing on the spot. Yet he ultimately held himself back, raising his hand to throw Jiang Xing roughly aside, saying in a voice laced with hatred, “This matter will not be forgiven easily! Wuwang Sect must give an explanation for this!”
Hearing this, Jiang Xing let out a cold laugh, every word dripping with lethal poison. “My mission from the beginning to the end was to eliminate the snake demon! Not a single word written in it said I had to protect Tenglong City! Rather than asking the sect for an explanation, why don’t you go drop to your knees and beg your snake demon master for one?!”
Lu Buyun had never met someone like him. Overcome with sudden fury, he drew his sword and thrust it straight toward Jiang Xing.
Before the tip of the sword could touch Jiang Xing, a hand grabbed hold of it, preventing it from moving forward even a fraction of an inch.
Fresh blood flowed down from the blade, yet that hand showed no intention of letting go.
“Brother Lu, calm your anger.”
Zishu Bai looked as though he had just been pulled out of a sea of blood. His snow-white Taoist robes were already drenched in dried blood, stained a glaring, crimson red.
And in the palm of his hand, he was holding the severed head of the snake demon.
Lu Buyun looked at the head he was holding in utter disbelief. His grip on the long sword loosened, and he stumbled back several steps, nearly collapsing to the ground. “Lord Qingzhu…”
Jiang Xing was equally astounded. He had thought Zishu Bai would at least fight the snake demon for a while longer. After all, that was a grand demon that consumed a Golden Core cultivator every five years—how could it be killed so easily by Zishu Bai?
“You guys…” Lu Buyun’s voice choked, completely overwhelmed by despair as two lines of hot tears streamed down his face. “How could you harm the people of Tenglong City like this? I entertained you with good intentions and never offended you in the slightest! Without Lord Qingzhu, where will Tenglong City go from here?!”
Zishu Bai looked at him quietly, set the head down on the ground, and helped Lu Buyun up. “Have you still not figured it out?”
His voice was very faint, carrying a bit of raspiness, as if he was too exhausted to summon any strength.
“Even if Jiang Xing hadn’t come to incite the snake demon to eat people today, the snake demon would have harbored malevolent intent sooner or later. A demon’s appetite will never be satisfied. Sacrificing once every five years was merely it recovering its strength. Once it grew to a point where no one could match it, Tenglong City would be the very first place it destroyed.”
Lu Buyun stubbornly pushed him away, shouting in anger, “What do you know?! Serving Lord Qingzhu has been a tradition for a hundred years! Nothing like this has ever happened in a century…”
Zishu Bai closed his eyes, speaking in a gentle voice: “I’m sorry, I don’t have the energy to argue with you anymore. Things have come to this point; I ask the City Lord to quickly return to the city to take care of the injured townspeople. Jiang Xing and I will also do our best to make amends.”
Lu Buyun finally stopped his accusations. He took a long time to recover, thinking of the citizens who might still be harassed by the remaining snakes, his heart aching as if cut by a knife. Knowing that everything was irreversible, he could only try his best to deal with the aftermath. So, giving them a cold, sharp glare, he turned around and sprinted down the mountain.
After he left, the forest steeped in the scent of blood finally returned to tranquility.
Zishu Bai slowly let out a breath. As he sheathed his sword, his wrist trembled imperceptibly.
He turned his head toward Jiang Xing, who had been pushed down onto the ground, and extended his hand.
Jiang Xing didn’t notice the tremor in his fingertips, nor did he take his hand; instead, he turned and walked toward the mountain peak.
Zishu Bai let out a sigh and quietly followed behind him, watching as he dexterously extracted the snake demon’s spiritual core and stowed it away.
It was as if Zishu Bai’s presence was far less meaningful than that spiritual core.
After a moment, Jiang Xing turned back to look at him, his hand suddenly resting on his sword hilt.
In an instant, Zishu Bai’s eyes widened slightly, and he instinctively grabbed Jiang Xing’s wrist—only to hear a faint, cold laugh filled with heavy irony by his ear.
“You don’t trust me anymore, so why keep pretending to be so thoughtful and gentle?”
Zishu Bai asked in total perplexity, “I really want to trust you, but why did you do this?”
Why seduce the snake demon into harming ordinary citizens? Why insist on using such extreme methods to solve the problem? Why hold such deep resentment toward Lu Buyun?
He truly didn’t understand.
Jiang Xing looked at him quietly, his voice flat: “I was always this kind of person—treacherous, selfish, devoid of humanity, treating human lives like grass. I thought you already knew.”
“I don’t believe it.” Zishu Bai didn’t believe that someone who would save an injured stray cat could be ruthless enough to harm an entire city of innocent citizens. He said tentatively, “You knew I would definitely come to help you eliminate the snake demon, so you intentionally lured the snake demon into hurting people. That way, the City Lord wouldn’t have any reason to stop us from slaying the demon, right?”
Jiang Xing’s expression paused briefly. After a long moment, he sneered again, “You are beyond cure with your stupidity. I just found Lu Buyun utterly hypocritical and disgusting, and wanted the snake demon to kill him. Stop making excuses for me—hearing them only makes me want to laugh.”
Zishu Bai’s face turned pale, his voice extremely faint: “Disgusting? Where is he disgusting?”
A person who gave his all for the sake of the citizens—even if he was a bit foolish—was still a good person so kind he was practically faultless. Where was he disgusting?
Jiang Xing opened his mouth, yet in the end, he didn’t say a single word.
“You are so pitiful—you don’t even know why you harbor such resentment.”
Zishu Bai lowered his eyes in helplessness, turning to leave with a lonely figure. “Or perhaps you do know, but you just don’t want to tell me.”
“Forget it.”
Veins bulged on Jiang Xing’s forehead, his fingertips digging fiercely into his palm. It wasn’t until the other man had walked far away that he slammed his fist into the tree beside him.
Blood seeped from his fingers, the pain briefly buffering his rage.
It didn’t matter; he didn’t care.
After a long time, Jiang Xing wiped his eyes, carefully tucked the spiritual core away, and flew on his sword toward the direction of the sect. The two figures finally drifted apart, going in opposite directions.
Tenglong City.
Countless townspeople blocked the entrance of the City Lord’s house, and that poor big yellow dog was squished into the corner, trembling in fear.
“Lu Buyun, get out here and give us an explanation!”
“Why did Lord Qingzhu fly into a rage? Why did he harm us?!”
“What on earth did you do? Tenglong City has never suffered such a disaster in a hundred years—what kind of City Lord are you?!”
When Lu Buyun finished clearing the remaining snakes and returned home, this was the scene that greeted him. He walked silently to the front of the crowd and slowly knelt down. Two streams of tears flowed down his face as he bowed his head low. “Fellow villagers, Qingzhu is dead. It’s all my fault. Whether you want to beat me or punish me, I accept it all. From this day forward, I am no longer the City Lord—I am merely a sinner of Tenglong City.”
Everyone looked at him. Some even rushed forward emotionally to strike him, while vendors threw rotten vegetable leaves and eggs at him.
Lu Buyun had no defense to offer, silently enduring it all.
Not until the sun sank in the west and dusk fell.
One by one, the townspeople left in disappointment. Lu Buyun remained kneeling in place, his body emitting the foul stench of rotting vegetable leaves and bad eggs.
Suddenly, a clean and neat handkerchief embroidered with small flowers appeared before his eyes.
“Uncle Lu, don’t cry.”
Lu Buyun raised his head in a daze.
The little girl clumsily used that handkerchief to wipe away Lu Buyun’s tears and picked the rotten vegetable leaves off his head, speaking unclearly: “The narcissus flower you taught me to plant last time has bloomed. When will you come to my house to take a look?”
His lips quivered, but his throat was choked—he couldn’t squeeze out a single word.
Glancing slightly past her, Lu Buyun saw many citizens standing behind the little girl, their eyes filled with concern.
“Yao’er, go ahead.”
Someone gently pushed their child forward. Soon after, one child after another ran over to help clean the dirt off his body.
Lu Buyun tightly embraced those innocent, bewildered children, finally bursting into loud, bitter tears.
As the night grew dark, lanterns were lit across Tenglong City.
Dragging his exhausted body, Zishu Bai walked into the Lu household; he still owed Lu Buyun an apology.
However, when he reached the main hall, he saw Lu Buyun sitting by the table, flanked by his wife and child.
“Zemin, slow down. Daddy will pick out the fish bones before you eat.” Sensing a guest outside as he finished speaking, Lu Buyun looked up. Seeing who it was, a trace of complex emotion flickered in his eyes.
He let out a low sigh and handed over a pair of bowl and chopsticks. “Sit down and eat together.”
Zishu Bai’s figure paused briefly, but after a moment, he still sat down at the dining table.
The dishes were very simple: a leftover grass carp, followed by three vegetarian dishes.
“City Lord, I…”
“Just call me Brother Lu,” Lu Buyun interrupted him in a low voice. “It’s all over—the good and the bad, it’s all over. You were right; a day like this was bound to come sooner or later.”
He should bear this responsibility—the responsibility of letting the citizens of Tenglong City rely on their own strength to fight against natural disasters. Blindly enduring and yielding would only lead to a demon’s insatiable greed.
When he returned home today and saw Xuanning cooking dinner, while Zemin stared at him in surprise as if seeing a stranger, he suddenly realized that besides being the City Lord, he had another identity—the father of this household.
“Brother Lu, Tenglong City will definitely get better,” Zishu Bai felt a heavy burden lift from his heart, smiling slightly. “The people cannot do without you, and neither can Tenglong City.”
Lu Buyun pursed his lips, holding back his tears. “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Eat.”
Little Zemin picked up a piece of his favorite fish meat, placed it into Zishu Bai’s bowl, and whispered, “Did that very mean brother not come back with you?”
Zishu Bai looked at him in surprise, “What?”
“The mean brother who likes to pick on kids,” Little Zemin took a couple of bites of rice and whispered, “He said a lot of things to me and made me cry. Why didn’t he come back with you? Did something happen to him?”
Even though he didn’t like that mean brother, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to him either.
Lu Buyun was equally startled and touched the child’s small face. “Zemin, what did he say to you?” That scoundrel cultivator better not have corrupted his good child.
Little Zemin tried hard to recall, imitating the mean brother’s tone: “Even if ten thousand people tell you your dad is a hero, you shouldn’t think so. After your dad dies, the citizens will at most remember him for five years—after five years, they won’t even know his last name… Your family will become very poor, your mom will raise you all by herself by scavenging, and other kids won’t admire you anymore—they’ll dislike and distance themselves from you… That was all.”
Phew, he was really amazing to remember such a long speech!
Little Zemin raised his head, only to find both Lu Buyun and Zishu Bai staring at him in a daze. He whispered, “But I’m not mad at him anymore. Is brother coming back to eat?”
Zishu Bai’s expression turned ugly bit by bit. He abruptly stood up and grabbed his sword. “I’m sorry, I have to go back and find him.”
Lu Buyun sat in his seat in stunned silence, not even noticing Zishu Bai’s departure. He never imagined that Jiang Xing had gone to incite the snake demon because of this—because after he died, his child would spend a tragic life.
Why had he never thought about this before?
He had exerted all his mind and energy to cultivate diligently for the sake of the people, yet he had never cared for Xuanning and Zemin at home.
Lu Buyun bent down, tightly hugging little Zemin, and choked out through tears,
“He was right… Daddy is not your hero.”
What he sacrificed had never been just himself, but the future of this entire family of three.
At the same time, Zishu Bai rushed to West Mountain without stopping for a single second. Finding no sign of Jiang Xing, he hurriedly turned around and headed toward the sect.
The wind swept past his ears. He had a premonition that something once within his reach had suddenly slipped through his fingers, never to return again.
Jiang Xing.
I have something I want to ask you.
—Was there also someone who once hurt you like this?
The reason you couldn’t state your resentment… is because you weren’t feeling resentment, but pain.