The impact sound of a human body falling was not particularly loud, yet it echoed persistently, buzzing in Shen Zong’s ears.
Compared to his previous fall from the cliff in his past life, he had suffered almost no severe injuries whatsoever, and even his inner demon had completely quieted down.
A somewhat warm liquid seemed to be flowing across his face. Shen Zong reached up to touch it, and it was blood.
Not his own blood, but Wen Zhihan’s. At the very moment of their fall, blood spattering from the wounds on his body had fallen onto Shen Zong’s face and person.
Yet within the blink of an eye, that blood had turned cold.
He instinctively took a step forward, touching the blood on Wen Zhihan’s body.
When his fingers first made contact, the blood was still warm, but soon it grew bitterly cold under the biting wind blowing through the bottom of the cliff.
Shen Zong wanted to use his usual mocking tone to rouse Wen Zhihan, telling him to stop pretending. He parted his lips, but no sound came out, instead he simply drew in a deep, heavy breath.
He was so shocked that he had instinctively held his breath.
How utterly ridiculous.
It was merely another of Wen Zhihan’s new tricks. It was not the first time he had faked his death to play the pity card, was it?
Shen Zong twitched the corner of his mouth, desperately trying to extract a new deduction from his chaotic thoughts to explain the reason behind Wen Zhihan going to such lengths, yet he could think of nothing at all. His mind echoed solely with the final whisper he had heard ringing in his ears.
Do not fear.
A-Yuan, do not fear.
Master is here, you will not come to harm.
In truth, I…
Shen Zong panted heavily, his heart beating like a pounding drum. With a dull thud, he dropped to his knees before the motionless form of Wen Zhihan. Looking down at the boundless expanse of blood, even though he was thinking of nothing at all, lacking any deductions, evidence, or verification for anything, his heart refused to calm down no matter what.
In truth, what?
When Wen Zhihan pushed him away with all his might, what on earth had he wanted to say?
“Hey…”
He had no idea what he was feeling so nervous about. After all, the person he had wanted most to kill was now lying collapsed right before him, what was there for him to be dissatisfied with? Why on earth did his voice sound so hoarse?
He reached out and prodded the person whose eyes were tightly shut. It was as if Wen Zhihan were naturally skilled at acting, and all it took was for him to do this to wake the man up.
Just like by the hot spring, when he had simply reached out and called out Master, waking him right up.
Yet Wen Zhihan still showed no reaction.
Almost instinctively, Shen Zong clenched his teeth, feeling an unreasoning wave of irritation, as if Wen Zhihan had deliberately left his words half-said before dying, forcing him to exhaust every ounce of his strength at this very moment just to keep a single breath left in the man.
He did not even have the presence of mind to realize how absurd and laughable his excuses for resenting and blaming Wen Zhihan were. Had the inner demon still been awake and retaining even a shred of consciousness, it would surely have seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to mock him mercilessly.
Perhaps the shock of this scene was simply too immense, or perhaps his own body had sustained significant impact. By the time Shen Zong regained his senses, he had already pressed his palms against Wen Zhihan’s chest, desperately funneling wave after wave of spiritual energy into his meridians and vital organs as if venting his frustration.
His memories became fragmented within this brief span of less than a cup of tea’s time. Covered in cold sweat, just as he thought to stop performing such a foolish act, he caught sight of medicine vials scattered all over the ground.
Hemo-static, healing, and blood-replenishing medicinal powders had been haphazardly sprinkled across Wen Zhihan’s wounds, and medicinal pills had somehow been forced into his mouth. Yet Wen Zhihan’s jaws remained tightly locked, stubbornly refusing to swallow.
He was doing all this merely to wake the man up and demand the second half of that sentence.
Truly insane, completely insane.
Clatter.
The sound of metal clashing against the ground rang out beside him, startling Shen Zong into a sudden, sharp turn of his head.
It was the long swords that had pursued them to save someone, only to end up saving solely him, the traitor.
Wielded by cultivators year-round and bound to their owners, these personal swords often possessed a degree of spirituality, acting in harmony with their master’s intent while carrying a trace of spiritual aura, earning them the name of spiritual swords.
Now, having fulfilled their purpose, these spiritual swords failed to heed their masters’ summons to return to the cliff above. Instead, they plummeted like lifeless stones, reverting to inert objects devoid of breath or movement.
Much like Wen Zhihan, who had fallen down here.
This was because before they escaped the Cliff of Returning to Heaven, the spiritual energy within their blades had been entirely exhausted.
The Cliff of Returning to Heaven stood ten thousand feet high, its spiritual energy sparse, functioning as a burial ground of no return. Countless powerful cultivators had perished here, and none knew the true depth of the precipice nor what lay hidden at its base, save for the grim certainty that it was a dead end with no way out.
Except for Shen Zong.
In his past life, when he had the misfortune of plunging into the Cliff of Returning to Heaven, he too had believed himself doomed. Fortunately, he eventually encountered a stroke of fortune, becoming the very first person to walk out of the Cliff of Returning to Heaven alive.
Precisely for this reason, he understood better than anyone else why the Cliff of Returning to Heaven could bury countless individuals and ensure that even mighty cultivators never returned.
This place devoured spiritual energy.
Even the most formidable cultivator found it strenuous in a place devoid of spiritual energy. Here, acting like a bottomless pit, anyone who fell, even cultivators carrying their own innate spiritual energy, would have the remaining reserves in their dantian rapidly hollowed out, to say nothing of a cultivator who had inevitably sustained injuries upon tumbling off the cliff.
The more one struggled to escape, the faster one died.
Just like these spiritual swords reduced to scrap metal, just like the victims who had perished here in the past, just like his former self.
And now, Wen Zhihan as well.
This place was barren, strewn with whitening bones. The sole sound echoing through the air was the mournful wailing of the lonely ghosts and lingering specters who had died here in ages past and found themselves forever trapped even in death.
Spiritual energy could not escape, nor could souls. As time marched on, the spirits of all living creatures that had perished here since antiquity were denied reincarnation or deliverance, long since transforming into countless vicious ghosts and malignant entities, twisting and going mad within the endless passage of the years.
Faint wisps of black mist were slowly enveloping the two of them like beasts hunting cornered prey, those were precisely the malignant entities that would make an already dire situation catastrophic.
Mortals upon death became ghosts, and ghosts upon death became phantoms, ultimately blending into one indistinguishable mass collectively termed malignant entities by the populace.
The flesh and blood of the living, the spiritual energy residing within cultivators, each possessed an irresistible, supreme allure, exuding an inescapable temptation.
Shen Zong instantly tossed out several talismans. The thin, supple yellow paper instantly stiffened in his hand, darting outward in all directions like flying knives.
Red light flared as the talismans hovered mid-air, repelling the malignant entities attempting to draw near. The sharp, grating shrieks of the ghosts gave him a severe headache.
Useful though the talismans were, relying purely on spiritual energy was merely quenching thirst with poisoned wine, buying them at best a moment or two.
Wen Zhihan was definitely not dead yet.
Thinking this unreasoningly, strength returned to his limbs. Once he recalled the existence of these malignant entities, his mind quickly regained its composure. He scrambled up from the pool of blood and began scanning the base of the cliff for a route.
He remembered there being a natural mountain cave nearby, it would make a convenient shelter for recuperation and healing, and served as the sole location capable of helping them hold out for three days.
No matter what, Wen Zhihan could not die here.
This was entirely different from what he desired.
Shen Zong attempted to support Wen Zhihan, trying to carry him on his back or hold him in his arms, but the moment he moved the body, his expression shifted drastically.
Broken.
Wen Zhihan’s ribs were fractured, his arms broken, his skull bleeding profusely with a potential cranial fracture.
He had broken his master’s body.
To lift and carry him away directly would only shatter him further.
A blank expression plastered across his face, Shen Zong gazed at his master’s battered body, experiencing helplessness and bewilderment for the very first time.
What should he do?
A gentle breeze brushed lightly past his back, differing entirely from the chilling, gloomy winds of the cliff bottom. Shen Zong’s pupils dilated as he whipped around to look.
Back in his past life, he had also experienced a wisp of spring breeze amidst absolute desperation.
His master practiced the Dao of All Things Flourishing, because practitioners of this path more frequently descended the mountain to hone their skills and interact with mortals, it was also referred to by humanity as the Dao of Salvation.
Within his hazy, distant memories, that was the gentlest sword art he had ever witnessed, prioritizing outward release of spiritual energy over containment.
Whenever his master channeled spiritual energy, his entire person naturally radiated an ambiance resembling a warm spring breeze. Wherever his footsteps fell, ice and snow melted and withered wood sprouted anew. Even a casual stroll through mountain forests would entice birds to bring twigs in offering.
Later on, that impostor arrived, and he never laid eyes upon such breathtaking beauty again.
Until that year when he walked into utter despair, weeping and kneeling crazily across a boundless wasteland, abandoning himself to calling out his master’s name over and over while questioning the Heavenly Dao.
Miraculously, a breath of spring breeze had suddenly swept past him, and in his dazed state, Shen Zong had almost fancied it to be his master’s gentle caress.
Across the winter wasteland where all vitality had been severed, warm yellow wildflowers had bloomed one after another.
It felt as though his master had quietly passed by his side, silently swinging a sword for him to sever a wisp of desolate deathly aura.
Master?
At present, turning back to look, the only response greeting Shen Zong among the piles of rubble at the base of the cliff was the swaying of withered branches in the wind.
Failing to catch sight of his master’s manifestation, Shen Zong felt an inexplicable sense of relief.
The very next second, however, a tender green sapling abruptly sprouted amidst that pile of rubble.
Shen Zong’s eyes widened sharply.
Hi!
Shen Zong, why do you look so dazed? Did you drop on your head?
The Leaving-Man Tree stretched its branches before him, showing off without a shred of self-awareness.
Eh? Did you finally kill your master?
“He is not dead.”
Expressionless, Shen Zong lashed out with a single sword strike, directly severing the thickest stem and leaves of the Leaving-Man Tree. “Leaving-Man Tree, things have escalated to this point. Do not think you owe me an explanation?”
Um…
This place is not safe. He looks rather heavily injured, let us first help you carry him to, to…
“A cave. His bones are severely fractured, support him flatly beneath, and do not break him further. Lead the way to the cave.”
Oh oh, right, right!
With the stretcher woven from wood by the Leaving-Man Tree, Shen Zong finally succeeded in transporting Wen Zhihan’s body safely into the mountain cave.
Setting up a barrier at the entrance of the cave to block the entry of malignant entities required far less effort than using talismans outside.
Terrified by the gloomy and terrifying murderous aura radiating from Shen Zong, the Leaving-Man Tree hurriedly defended itself.
Your wish was simply to make everyone believe Wen Zhihan was dead and then hide him away all by yourself…
Look, although the process was a bit messy, the result is the same…
You might as well say whether this plan worked or not!
In two more days, the Profound Heaven Sect will be holding a joint memorial service for the two of you. Who knows, your tombstones might even end up placed side by side. How joyous and auspicious!