Mine and yours? Mine and yours, what?
Shu Yang watched coldly as Ruan Wei struggled to grip his robe, his pale lips moving as he labored to force out weak, fragmented words. Shu Yang could barely make out whether those words had actually been spoken or if he had simply misheard them.
After a moment of thought, he leaned down close to Ruan Wei’s lips to listen clearly. However, Ruan Wei seemed utterly exhausted. After gasping out those few words, the rest faded into heavy, labored breathing. He could not speak again, no matter how hard he tried.
Piercing the physical body with the primordial soul was fatal. When one cultivated to the pinnacle, the primordial soul became the most formidable weapon a human or deity possessed. Powerful beings who had reached a certain level of cultivation often abandoned traditional weapons entirely, choosing instead to enter the sea of consciousness to duel with their souls. In times of crisis, they could even detonate their primordial soul to generate a devastating shockwave to destroy their enemy.
The destructive power of the primordial soul was immense, especially when a powerful one passed through a fragile body. At best, it shattered the internal organs; at worst, it obliterated the spirit and soul entirely. Ruan Wei’s lapse in focus just moments ago was a blunder of the lowest order, effectively pushing himself into the path of death.
Shu Yang could not fathom why Ruan Wei had lost focus. Just as he could not comprehend what Ruan Wei had intended to say, he watched helplessly as Ruan Wei slowly closed his eyes before he could finish.
Seconds later, a brilliant silver light erupted from Ruan Wei’s body. Soon, nothing remained in the distance but a pool of fresh, crimson blood and a small, wounded, silver-white dragon curled into a ball.
The divine beast, capable of summoning wind and rain with a length of a hundred meters, had regressed to a tiny dragon less than half the length of Shu Yang’s arm. He lay silently in the blood, his eyes closed. Shu Yang, having acted without hesitation in the critical moment to drive the cub’s primordial soul back into his body, had barely managed to preserve Ruan Wei’s last shred of life.
Seeing Ruan Wei forced back into his true form, Shu Yang sighed helplessly and scooped him up from the blood. Ruan Wei lay in Shu Yang’s warm palm, seemingly aware of his situation. He opened his blood-red eyes slightly, flickered his tail, and looked listless.
“Stop moving.” Shu Yang, moved by the pathetic sight, sighed gently. After long hesitation, he finally summoned his star core and placed Ruan Wei inside.
The star core was a three-dimensional prism, shimmering with faint starlight and housing the source of his astral power. This core had been bestowed upon Shu Yang by the Heavenly Dao upon his succession. The possessor of the star core became the Lord of Purple Star, the ruler of the myriad stars. For this reason, Shu Yang rarely revealed it. However, circumstances demanded urgency.
Watching the dying Ruan Wei, Shu Yang finally tucked him into the core to heal. With this, Ruan Wei was no longer teetering on the brink of death. He shrank to the length of a middle finger, swimming back and forth within the core, curiosity shining in his eyes as he watched Shu Yang from inside.
“Silly dragon.” Shu Yang poked Ruan Wei through the core. His fingertip sank into the starlight, and Ruan Wei clutched his finger with his claws. He even nuzzled Shu Yang’s index finger, looking remarkably attached. His eyes were clear and bright, full of the absolute trust and dependency a beast held for its master. When Ruan Wei looked up, Shu Yang could even see his own smiling reflection within those pitch-black, focused pupils.
Shu Yang’s heart skipped a beat, as if burned, and he immediately withdrew his hand.
Ruan Wei did not understand what had happened. He flicked his tail and watched Shu Yang from within the core, seemingly wanting to speak, but Shu Yang retreated the core into his own sea of consciousness, cutting off his connection to the outside world.
Once Ruan Wei was tucked away, Shu Yang closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying his best not to dwell on the strange ripples that had stirred in his heart when Ruan Wei had held his finger.
He must not let his heart be moved.
The highest realm of the Way of Ruthlessness was to see mountains as mountains and water as water. Regardless of what stood before him, in Shu Yang’s eyes, everything was merely the origin of material things. One must never harbor greed, love, or jealousy. Once the heart was moved, it signaled an unstable Dao heart, leading inevitably to the danger of cultivation regression.
Having confirmed that his heart had returned to its usual stillness, he turned his attention back to the cub. The cub was far more fragile than Ruan Wei. While Ruan Wei could survive shredded organs and still move about in the star core, the cub had collapsed the moment Shu Yang struck his primordial soul back into his body, remaining dead to the world.
The big one and the small one are both exhausting.
The cub was a dragon who had never received parental guidance. He did not know how to shift forms, nor how to encourage his dragon horns to grow; he could only bash his head against walls to relieve the itching. Since Shu Yang needed to utilize both of them to achieve his goals, he bid a brief farewell to the Phoenix clan leader, Xuanqing, and brought the pair with him to Penglai.
Although the Immortal of Penglai had been over a hundred years old before attaining immortality, he had finally succeeded, and now appeared as a youth of twenty. He had been planting fairy herbs on Penglai Island, hoping to offer them at the Queen Mother’s birthday banquet, when a cold, familiar voice called out: “Qinglin!”
Hearing that voice, which he could never forget, Penglai shivered. He straightened up and turned, seeing his old friend, as elegant and graceful as ever, slowly approaching.
The water pot he held slipped from his grasp.
Shu Yang paused, stepped forward, and picked up the fallen pot from near his feet.
“Shu… Shu Yang?!”
Qinglin stared, mouth agape, filled with disbelief. “You… you are unharmed?”
He had believed that after Shu Yang jumped from the Executioner’s Platform, his immortal body had been destroyed and his soul obliterated.
“Why would I be harmed?” Shu Yang said indifferently. “I am the Lord of Purple Star.”
Qinglin: “…”
Excellent. That arrogant, haughty demeanor is my friend Shu Yang.
“I heard that in a fit of rage, you jumped from the Executioner’s Platform, became a fallen immortal, and vanished,” Qinglin said, calming himself while leading Shu Yang toward his immortal residence. “I live in the remote Penglai and knew nothing of the internal details. I truly thought you had perished. I was devastated for days.”
Shu Yang: “…”
He turned and looked at Qinglin for a long moment, then offered a playful, half-serious jest: “At least you cared for me.”
He added nonchalantly, “If I truly died one day, I fear you would be the only one in all of heaven and earth who would grieve for me.”
Qinglin: “…”
His expression grew strangely complex. He hesitated for a moment, as if thinking of someone; the character “Ruan” nearly slipped from his lips, but Shu Yang’s indifferent, emotionless gaze choked the word back. Upon meeting those eyes, Qinglin realized once again who stood before him.
This was the only Lord of Purple Star in all of heaven and earth, the one who had severed his own emotional roots, who harbored no love and no desire. He was ruthless, loveless, and desireless; no one could touch him or enter his heart. Even at the cost of a painful price, one could never trade for a single glance or a single heartbeat of affection from him.
With that thought, Qinglin’s heart sank. He lowered his eyelashes, his expression unreadable. After a long while, he looked back at Shu Yang, his voice noticeably lower. “Why have you come to find me? Is there something you need help with?”
“You understand me best.” Shu Yang did not notice the flash of regret and loss in Qinglin’s eyes. He snapped his fingers and walked ahead, not caring if Qinglin followed. “There are two injured dragons here. Could I trouble you to treat them?”
“Dragons?”
Qinglin was currently allergic to the word “dragon.” “What kind of dragons? Black, white, colorful, or…”
“Ice dragons,” Shu Yang said, then added, “The other one is of an unknown breed.”
Qinglin: “…”
He stood frozen for a long time, until Shu Yang grew impatient, before he finally spoke: “Can I see them?”
“Very well.”
Shu Yang turned his palm upward, and after a faint cyan-blue glow, a tiny ice dragon appeared in his hand. Since the cub could not shift into dragon form, he remained in his human guise. When Shu Yang released him, the cub rolled onto the ground near Qinglin’s feet. Even being tossed around like this, the cub did not wake. He lay on the ground, his face partially covered in scales he did not know how to retract.
Qinglin leaned down, scooped up the cub, and glanced at Ruan Wei in Shu Yang’s palm. After a moment of contemplation, he said, “Follow me.”
He led the way to the back mountains. Shu Yang followed a few seconds later.
The back mountains were covered in dense, rolling fields of white ink-ball cotton flowers. Each flower looked like a giant, fluffy dandelion, yet more substantial and white—like a giant cat toy, the size of a cat’s fist, their weight bending the branches.
“Why have you brought me here?”
Shu Yang scanned the white waves, stunned for a moment. In his memories, a vague image of himself lying there to rest flickered through his mind. Strange, have I been here before? Have I seen these flowers? But why do I have no recollection of it?
“These are white ink-ball cotton flowers, manifested from the soul of the Snow Maiden of Nanshan Nan. The fruit has the power to nourish the soul and reshape internal organs and physical bodies,” Qinglin explained.
“The soul of the Snow Maiden of Nanshan Nan?” Shu Yang did not respond for a long time. “The Snow Maiden lives alone in the deep mountains and is notoriously stingy. How could she possibly offer her soul to you?”
“I did not ask her for it,” Qinglin said, looking at the flowers swaying like waves in the wind. His voice held a trace of a sigh. “A fool ventured alone into Nanshan Nan and was beaten half to death by a Snow Maiden two levels higher in cultivation than him. The Snow Maiden took pity on him and showed mercy by bestowing it upon him.”
Qinglin did not name the person, so Shu Yang continued his thought. “That must have been a fool indeed. To risk so much to obtain the white ink-ball cotton flowers and then just give them to you—what a fool.”
Qinglin: “…”
He stared at Shu Yang’s oblivious face for a long time before looking away, his heart a turbulent mess. Shu Yang had truly severed his emotional roots, cutting off every fragment of past affection, unable to recall even a single thing about that person.
Qinglin’s thoughts surged with helplessness, fear, and sighs. Meanwhile, Ruan Wei, wrapped around Shu Yang’s wrist, remained oblivious, licking Shu Yang’s fingertip as if wanting to get close, completely unaware of the pitying gaze Qinglin cast upon him.
You gave everything for Shu Yang, yet he knows nothing. And he can never know. Ruan Wei, have you ever felt hate?