Evening.
The sky over Hongchen Mountain grew dark a bit earlier than usual.
Gu Chengming stood beneath the eaves of the Jingsi Courtyard, his gaze fixed on the horizon.
The black and white currents of the Yin Yang Twin Fish Array flowed slowly through the high altitude as always, but through the perception authority granted by the Yin Yang Fish, Gu Chengming saw things invisible to the naked eye.
The flow of qi at the three outermost layers of array nodes had slowed significantly over the past two hours; this change was so subtle that even Elder Kurong might not have noticed it if she looked personally.
But Gu Chengming knew what it meant.
That thing was likely coming soon.
He retracted his gaze and turned to walk inside.
Spread across the table was the array modification diagram left by Xu Huayi, where the adjustment of every node had undergone repeated deduction and verification. The edges of the paper were slightly frayed, a trace of Xu Huayi working day and night for three consecutive days.
He reached out and lightly tapped the most central core position of the array eye.
Everything was ready.
The array had been modified, and the restrictions on the Seeking the Sword Pavilion had been lifted. The emotions of the disciples, suppressed for so long, were brewing into a pink mist above Hongchen Mountain that was almost tangible.
And that thing was slowly approaching, following the scent of this mist.
...
Before night fell, Fu Xiaoxiao visited once.
Today, she did not tie her hair back into a ponytail but let it drape over her shoulders. A few stray strands were blown onto her cheek by the evening wind, and she didn't bother to brush them away.
"The screening is finished." She sat down opposite Gu Chengming and took a name list from her sleeve to place on the table. "The final batch of thirty-seven people. The heart-parasites and red dust seeds have all been cleared out."
"Are you worried?" Fu Xiaoxiao stared at him for several breaths.
Gu Chengming hesitated for a moment and did not tell Fu Xiaoxiao about what might happen tonight.
It wasn't a lack of trust; rather, if his judgment was correct, Fu Xiaoxiao was the person who could least afford to be affected tonight.
She was one of the cultivators of the Hehuan Sect with the deepest cultivation in the Red Dust Technique. If that thing truly came, she would be the one most affected.
"Senior Sister." Gu Chengming spoke, weighing his words. "I might be busy until very late tonight. You should head back early to rest."
Fu Xiaoxiao raised an eyebrow.
"No dual cultivation?"
When she said this, she was no longer as evasive as she had been the previous days. Her tone even carried a hint of being perfectly justified, as if this were already an established routine between the two of them.
"Not today." Gu Chengming smiled. "I'll make it up to you tomorrow."
Fu Xiaoxiao huffed, not quite satisfied, but she didn't press further.
She stood up, but when she reached the door, she suddenly paused.
"Xiao Gu."
"Mhm?"
She didn't turn around, only showing half of her face, with a small section of her cheek reddened by the sunset.
"I like you."
"I know."
Hearing those words, Fu Xiaoxiao left contentedly. Her footsteps grew distant on the stone steps before finally melting into the twilight.
Gu Chengming watched that small silhouette disappear around the corner and stood there for a long time.
Then he closed the door, turned back to the desk, and retrieved a communication jade slip from the deepest part of a drawer. "Fellow Daoist Xu."
The jade slip lit up, and Xu Huayi's voice returned almost immediately.
"The array is entirely in place. All node deflection angles have been fine-tuned according to what you said."
"Thank you."
"Why the thanks?" Xu Huayi paused before asking, "Fellow Daoist Gu, are you certain that thing will come tonight?"
"I'm not certain," Gu Chengming said truthfully. "But if it truly follows the scent of the red dust seeds, then tonight will be the best opportunity."
"If I were it, I wouldn't wait any longer."
"I'll be on standby at the array hub." Xu Huayi's voice regained the steadiness expected of a special envoy of the Imperial Observatory. "Once you give the signal, the array will complete its closure within three breaths."
"Good." Gu Chengming put away the jade slip, walked to the window, and pushed open the shutters.
The night wind rushed in, carrying the warmth unique to Hongchen Mountain—a mix of floral fragrance and red dust aura.
In the distant mountains, faint spots of light could be seen moving. Those were the disciples of the Seeking the Sword Pavilion gathering at night, exchanging new details about the sword cultivator in their dreams. Their laughter could be heard even from far away.
That laughter was quite pleasant to hear.
Gu Chengming closed his eyes, allowing the perception authority of the Yin Yang Fish to extend his consciousness across the entirety of Hongchen Mountain.
He "saw" many things. On a stone bench by the training ground, Su Xiaoshao was munching on a sweet osmanthus cake while flipping through the latest issue of the "Sword-Seeking Map Special Edition," the corners of her mouth curled high as she occasionally let out a silly giggle.
In the inner sect disciples' quarters, Qingluo was painting a new version of the "dream sword cultivator" again. This time she was painting the back view; she studied the paper for a long time before nodding with satisfaction.
Su Qiuzhi sat alone on the edge of a cliff on the Back Mountain, her legs dangling and swinging over the abyss. She held a cheap jade pendant bought from Huanxi Town, which had a crooked character for "Gu" carved into it—clearly her own handiwork, and quite poor at that.
Elder Kurong was brewing tea in her room, staring blankly at an empty chessboard. Only a single white piece sat on the board—the last move Yun Ni had failed to make before her death. Elder Jingxin sat under a lamp writing replies to the disciples affected by heart-parasites; each letter was long, with neat and gentle handwriting.
Fu Xiaoxiao had returned to her own residence and sat by the window in a daze for a while. Then she pulled a small booklet from under her pillow and flipped through it page by page. Recorded within were every date since she and Gu Chengming had started spending time together, with one or two short sentences following each date.
"He called me Senior Sister!"
"It's over, why do I feel like he looks so handsome when he smiles?"
"DUAL! CULTIVATION! ACHIEVED! Ehehehehehe!"
The last page had today's date, and Fu Xiaoxiao hesitated for a moment before writing.
"I will accompany him... until there is no path left to walk."
Gu Chengming retracted his perception and opened his eyes. A few things he truly wanted to do, beyond the scope of a galgame walkthrough, rose within his heart.
There were no grand reasons or the great righteousness of the world's common people—just these ordinary, trivial, and even somewhat ridiculous daily lives.
He didn't want these things to disappear.
【Hundred Bones Resonating suddenly spoke: Emperor Gu!】
—Yes?
【Leave the fighting to this Emperor.】
Gu Chengming let out a small laugh.
—Alright.
【Red Dust Phantom Step hesitated for a moment, but in the end, it failed to say the words 'Leave the matter of running away to me.'】
Dammit, it's a good thing you didn't say it, or the morale would have plummeted.
Gu Chengming thought with some helplessness.
...
During the Hour of the Ox.
The night on Hongchen Mountain changed without any warning.
It didn't grow darker; rather, it grew "heavier," as if an invisible film was slowly spreading from the horizon to cover the entire peak. That film had no color, no shape, and not even a fluctuation of spiritual energy, but it weighed on everyone's heart, causing everyone to simultaneously feel an inexplicable, groundless sorrow.
The first to notice the abnormality were the outer sect disciples with the lowest cultivation.
In the dormitory, a girl in the first realm who had only recently joined suddenly set down the novel in her hand. She didn't know why she was crying; just moments ago, she had been laughing and chatting with her roommate about the dream sword cultivator, but the tears simply wouldn't stop falling.
"What's wrong?" another female disciple leaned over, her voice filled with concern.
"I don't know..." She wiped the corners of her eyes, her voice trembling slightly. "I suddenly just want to cry."
The roommate froze for a moment, and then she too noticed the moisture welling in her own eyes.
At the same moment, across Hongchen Mountain, such scenes were playing out in countless corners simultaneously.
Some people suddenly crouched down while walking, weeping silently while hugging their knees. Some suddenly stopped their movements while practicing, staring blankly at their palms. Some suddenly lost their ability to speak while laughing, their throats feeling as if something were blocking them. No one knew what was happening, but everyone felt the same emotion.
Sorrow.
A pure, intense sorrow that did not belong to themselves.
...
Su Xiaoshao was hit by that sorrow while in her quarters.
She was preparing for bed, and her clothes were only half-removed when that emotion surged up without warning, like someone had poured an entire ocean into her chest, drowning everything.
She remembered the trial from three years ago.
That year, she was high-spirited and felt the entire world was beneath her feet. Before departing, she had even fought with Su Qiuzhi and said some very nasty things.
"This is all the ambition you have; don't even think about catching up to me for the rest of your life."
She remembered Su Qiuzhi's expression at that time.
Many people died in that trial. Su Qiuzhi almost died as well, while she had returned unscathed because her group had been changed at the last minute.
After returning, she went to find Su Qiuzhi and saw a person lying on a hospital bed. When Su Qiuzhi saw her come, she struggled to pull at the corners of her mouth.
"I didn't die. Are you disappointed?"
Su Xiaoshao sat by the bed, wanting to say something, but she couldn't say anything at all.
These memories were churned up in the torrent of sorrow, so clear they seemed to have happened only yesterday. Her cultivation was draining uncontrollably.
It wasn't being sucked away; she was actively giving up on it. That sorrow was too real, so real that she almost believed—all beautiful things in the world will eventually be lost, all efforts will eventually be in vain, and all companionship will eventually end in departure.
Every piece of sorrow once experienced, every loss, every regret one didn't want to face during midnight dreams would be unearthed, magnified, and magnified again in its approach until you drowned in your own memories.
...
Su Qiuzhi lasted a bit longer than Su Xiaoshao.
After all, she was someone who had clawed her way through adversity. That secret realm three years ago had nearly claimed her life, and every day since then had been scraped together piece by piece from pain.
But even so, that sorrow still found her weakness.
She sat on the edge of the cliff on the Back Mountain, gripping the cheap jade pendant with the character "Gu" carved into it so tightly her knuckles turned white.
She remembered the sentence Gu Chengming had said in her dream.
"You don't need to become anyone else, Su Qiuzhi. At least with me, you only need to be yourself."
But what was the use of being herself?
Being herself meant never catching up to Su Xiaoshao. Being herself meant almost dying during the trial. Being herself meant exhausting all her strength just to barely reach the starting line of others.
Being herself meant—even if she liked someone, she didn't know how to speak of it, only able to clumsily carve an ugly jade pendant and then sit alone by the cliff staring at it in a daze.
Tears dripped from her chin onto the jade pendant, wetting that crooked character.
The voice in her mind began to grow anxious.
【Hey! Don't get immersed in this emotion! Wake up!】
Unfortunately, Su Qiuzhi could no longer hear it.
...
Elder Kurong and Elder Jingxin realized something was wrong almost simultaneously.
As Fourth Realm cultivators, their resistance to emotions far exceeded that of ordinary disciples, but that sorrow still seeped in, only in a more hidden manner.
Looking at that solitary white piece on the chessboard, Kurong suddenly felt very tired. Having lived for so many years and seen so many people come and go, in the end, the people around her left one by one. How much longer did she have to keep supporting this old frame of her?
Elder Jingxin found her hand was shaking as she wrote. She had spent a lifetime writing and had never had a shaky hand, but now the trail of the brush across the paper was crooked and wobbly, like a child just learning to write.
Something was wrong.
Kurong was the first to react.
He stood up abruptly, his spiritual energy surging around her to forcefully suppress that emotion. The pieces on the board bounced from the aftershock of the spiritual energy, and that white piece rolled onto the ground with a crisp sound.
"Foreign enemy intrusion!"
His divine sense instantly covered Hongchen Mountain, and then he saw a scene that made his spine go cold.
Across the mountain, over half of the disciples had fallen into varying degrees of emotional instability. The outer sect disciples were the most severely affected; some had already fainted, and the spiritual energy in their seas of consciousness was leaking out uncontrollably.
The inner sect disciples were slightly better, but many were already unable to operate their cultivation arts normally.
A major incident had occurred.
...
Fu Xiaoxiao's residence.
While flipping through the small booklet, Fu Xiaoxiao suddenly laughed, and then as she laughed, tears began to fall.
It wasn't because of sorrow—at least not at first.
At first, it was just a subtle touch that slid in following her longing for Gu Chengming. Then that longing began to sour as she remembered the day her dao foundation shattered.
Everyone thought she was going to die, and she herself thought she was going to die. At that time, there was no Gu Chengming, and there was no one by her side.
She thought: If I die here, no one will probably remember me.
This thought was infinitely magnified under the catalysis of sorrow.
Fu Xiaoxiao's body began to shake.
She was afraid of returning to that kind of loneliness, and then that sorrow found the thing she feared most: What if one day Gu Chengming was no longer there either?
Fu Xiaoxiao's pupils suddenly dilated. She was a Fourth Realm cultivator and one of the elders with the deepest cultivation in the Red Dust Technique. Because of this, the influence she received was greater than anyone else's.
The small booklet slid from her fingers and fell to the floor.
Fu Xiaoxiao slowly collapsed by the window, her eyes losing focus. Those eyes, which were always lively and bright, became hollow and dim.
Within her Sea of Consciousness, spiritual energy was leaking outward at an extremely slow and irreversible speed.
...
And high above Hongchen Mountain, a gray human silhouette floated at the outermost layer of the Yin Yang Twin Fish Array, its expression filled with grief and tears that would never dry hanging from the corners of its eyes.
Sorrow.
It had no target and needed no target; it had simply followed the scent of the red dust seeds to this place and then began to do the only thing it knew how to do.
—Feeding.
The sorrow, fear, despair, and loneliness bursting forth from the thousands of disciples of the Hehuan Sect at this moment were turning into invisible silken threads, converging toward it from every corner of Hongchen Mountain.
The threads wrapped around its body, being absorbed, devoured, and digested.
The outline of Sorrow became clearer and more substantial.
It was condensing a physical form.
...
Through the perception authority granted by the Yin Yang Fish, Gu Chengming "saw" everything happening on Hongchen Mountain.
He saw Su Xiaoshao curled up in the corner of her bed. He saw Su Qiuzhi by the cliff gripping her jade pendant and weeping. He saw Elder Kurong's stubborn silhouette as he fought that sorrow alone. She saw Elder Jingxin's trembling fingers. He saw Qingluo crumple her unfinished painting into a ball and throw it on the floor, then slump over the desk crying silently.
He saw Fu Xiaoxiao.
Gu Chengming closed his eyes.
"Fellow Daoist Xu."
His voice was as calm as a pool of stagnant water, but beneath that water was something scalding, almost burning.
The jade slip lit up.
"Received."
Xu Huayi's response was only two words, but Gu Chengming knew that behind those two words were three days and nights of sleepless deductions and everything a genius of the dao of arrays could offer.
In the next instant—
Boom!!
The entire Hongchen Mountain shuddered violently.
Every node of the Yin Yang Twin Fish Array completed its deflection at the same moment. The flow of the black and white qi currents changed abruptly, shifting from encircling to constricting, from protecting to imprisoning.
One thousand and twenty-four array nodes completed the transition from a "Sect-Protecting Array" to a "Surround-and-Kill Forbidden Array" within three breaths.
The gray figure floating at the outer layer of the array was suddenly locked in place by the tightening array. The yin and yang qi transformed into thousands of chains, coiling from all directions to firmly trap Sorrow's form.
It did not struggle; it only continued doing what it had always been doing—feeding. The emotional threads rising from Hongchen Mountain did not break because the array had closed; they continued to converge toward Sorrow without interruption.
The array trapped its body, but it could not trap its essence.
Xu Huayi stood at the array hub, her judge's pen constantly sketching runes in the void to maintain the array's operation.
Fine beads of sweat had already seeped from her forehead. The array had indeed trapped Sorrow, but trapping it and destroying it were two different things.
That thing was neutralizing the array's restrictive force in a way she couldn't understand—not by force, but by corroding it from the inside. The yin and yang chains wrapped around it were being slowly assimilated by its emotions.
At this rate, the array could only be maintained for the duration of a single incense stick.
"Fellow Daoist Gu!" Xu Huayi transmitted her voice through the jade slip. "The array's assimilation speed is thirty percent faster than expected. Are your preparations ready?"
Jingsi Courtyard.
Gu Chengming stood in the courtyard. The moonlight could no longer reach him; above his head was the black and white vortex formed by the constricting Yin Yang Twin Fish Array. In the center of the vortex, that gray silhouette was slowly condensing a physical body.
"Ready."
His answer was brief.
Then he closed his eyes, and his consciousness was no longer limited to "observation." Instead, he actively opened himself up to the entire Hongchen Mountain, reaching out to touch everyone's emotions.
Not using the Red Dust Technique's method to "control" or "guide," but in a more primitive, instinctive way—as a vessel that could receive everyone's sorrow.
And the primer for this had already been planted half a month ago.
—The dream sword cultivator.
...
Su Xiaoshao was curled in the corner of her bed, her vision blurred by tears.
But just when she felt she was about to be completely swallowed by that sorrow, a trace of warmth suddenly rose in her heart.
That warmth was very faint, like the light from a distant window on a winter night, but it truly existed.
She didn't know what it was, but that warmth made her remember that dream.
In the dream, someone said to her: "You are already very impressive."
There was no logic to it; it was just a dream after all.
But Su Xiaoshao couldn't help but reach out her hand toward that warmth.
Su Qiuzhi felt the same thing through her tears. That warmth made her remember a sentence.
"You don't need to become anyone else."
She lowered her head, looking at the jade pendant in her hand that was wet with tears, her thumb stroking that ugly character for "Gu."
Then she gripped it tight.
Qingluo raised her head from the desk. She didn't know where that warmth came from, but it made her remember the back view of the sword cultivator standing with his sword in her dream—the silhouette she had drawn forty-eight versions of and still couldn't get right.
But strangely, she suddenly felt that it was okay if she couldn't draw it right.
Because what mattered wasn't what he looked like, but that he made her feel as though she were being seen.
...
Across Hongchen Mountain, over a thousand disciples of the Hehuan Sect felt the same warmth at the same moment.
The shape of that warmth varied from person to person, but it pointed in the same direction.
And everyone's emotions—whether sorrow, fear, loneliness, or longing—began to flow, converge, and surge toward that same place following that warmth.
They surged toward the person whose face they had never seen, but whom they had recognized in their dreams.
The emotions of over a thousand people flooded into Gu Chengming's body at the same moment. Sorrow, fear, loneliness, resentment, attachment, longing, yearning, obsession—countless emotions carrying countless memory fragments poured into the entrance of his Sea of Consciousness.
A metallic, sweet taste welled up in Gu Chengming's nose.
【Qingxin Art spoke with some concern: The load on the Sea of Consciousness is too great. If this continues...】
—I know.
The voices of over a thousand people echoed in his mind simultaneously. Some were crying, some were shouting, some were laughing, and some were silent.
"...This game of chess ultimately cannot be finished."
"I won't admit defeat."
"Can I really catch up to her?"
"What if he isn't here anymore?" That was Fu Xiaoxiao's voice.
Gu Chengming did not stop.
Sorrow was devouring emotions, and he was gathering them. Those emotional threads that were originally converging toward Sorrow began to turn, surging toward where Gu Chengming was.
Sorrow noticed. It felt the emptiness of its "food" being stolen.
That gray human figure in the array's prison moved for the first time. It turned its head, and that perpetually grieving face looked toward the Jingsi Courtyard.
"It is physicalizing!" Xu Huayi's voice came from the jade slip, carrying an irrepressible urgency. "Fellow Daoist Gu, now!"
Gu Chengming opened his eyes. The emotions of over a thousand people churned, collided, and merged in his Sea of Consciousness, so vast that they nearly drowned his awareness.
These emotions were too messy; sorrow and joy were mixed, fear and courage were tangled, and loneliness and attachment were entwined. they contradicted each other, conflicted with each other, and neutralized each other, unable to form any effective power at all.
Emotions themselves were not aggressive.
Unless—you gave them a carrier.
Gu Chengming raised his right hand.
【Hundred Bones Resonating laughed loudly, its killing intent boiling: Emperor Gu, I've been waiting for this!】
Dense golden patterns appeared on Gu Chengming's right arm, the outward manifestation of Hundred Bones Resonating operating at full power. Every pattern pulsed frantically, like a living thing.
And the emotions churning in his Sea of Consciousness finally found an exit.
The sorrow, fear, loneliness, resentment, attachment, and longing of over a thousand people—all emotions flowed toward his right arm following his will, toward that carrier constructed by Hundred Bones Resonating.
But it still wasn't enough. These emotions were too messy and scattered, like loose sand. Even with a carrier, they were just a mass of chaotic power. He needed a "core."
A kind of core emotion that was strong enough, pure enough, and capable of unifying all other emotions.
Love was too passive, fear was too fragile, longing was too gentle... none of these would work.
Then what should he use?
Gu Chengming looked down at his right fist.
The golden patterns interlaced into a dense net on the surface of his fist, where the emotions of over a thousand people churned, desperate for a direction.
"I will accompany him... until there is no path left to walk."
He thought of the Hehuan Sect disciples who had died because of the Longevity Sect. He thought of Li Suizhuang, whose emotions were suppressed. He thought of the misled Yun Ni... He thought of Fu Xiaoxiao's booklet.
—Why should you all have to endure this?
The moment this thought exploded in his heart, all the emotions found their direction.
A pure, irrepressible fury.
That fury did not belong to him alone.
It was all the emotions of over a thousand people that had been suppressed, devoured, and stolen, now gathered into four words after finding an exit.
—I will not permit this.
Gu Chengming's right fist lit up. The floating, vast red dust aura within his body coiled around it. This was the power he had accumulated during these days in the Hehuan Sect through dual cultivation, the gift of the Yin Yang Fish, and the remnants of the collective desires.
He had never found an opportunity to solidify this floating red dust aura... but there was no need to solidify it now.
All the red dust aura exploded under the ignition of fury, transforming into a torrent of emotion from over a thousand people that poured into the right fist augmented to the extreme by Hundred Bones Resonating.
The sound of bones cracking came from within his body—the groan of the meridians in his right arm as they endured power far beyond their limits.
Golden patterns spread from his fist to his wrist, forearm, and all the way to his shoulder. Every inch of skin was cracking, and blood seeped from the fissures, only to be instantly vaporized by that scalding power.
Using Hundred Bones Resonating as a carrier, pour out this fury!
This was the plan Gu Chengming had been preparing until now.
...
Within the array's prison.
Sorrow's physicalization was more than half complete. That originally gray outline had become much clearer. The tear marks on its face were no longer illusory lines but actual liquid flowing downward.
It felt its "food" converging toward a certain direction at an unprecedented speed and scale.
There was a "point" in that direction, and that point was sucking away all its food.
Then it saw a mass of emotion so vast it felt "confused."
There were too many things in that mass of emotion: sorrow, fear, loneliness, resentment, attachment, longing, and the inner thoughts of over a thousand different people.
But all these messy, contradictory emotions that should have neutralized each other were currently being carried, guided, and unified by a single power.
Fury.
In its cognition, all emotions eventually returned to sorrow, and all struggles eventually returned to silence.
But that person did not think so.
That person felt it should not be so.
...
Gu Chengming took a step forward, and the ground beneath his feet shattered. It wasn't an aftershock of spiritual energy, but pure strength.
He leapt from the wall of the Jingsi Courtyard, his form drawing a straight trajectory in the night sky as he charged directly toward the gray figure in the array's prison.
The wind shrieked in his ears. He could no longer feel pain in his right arm, not because the sensation had vanished, but because that power was so vast that pain had become irrelevant.
Sorrow completed its physicalization at the final moment.
Its body transformed from illusory to substantial. The tear marks condensed into actual droplets, and the grieving face possessed a real outline for the first time.
That was the "only chance of winning" Xu Huayi had mentioned.
The moment of physicalization.
In that split second from nothingness to substance, it was no longer an untouchable convergence of emotions, but a solid target that could be hit.
This window was extremely brief.
So brief it only allowed for one punch.
That was enough.
...
Later, someone asked Xu Huayi what that punch was like.
She remembered for a long time before finally saying only one sentence.
"I didn't see it clearly."
This wasn't a humble remark, but the truth.
She truly hadn't seen it clearly.
She only saw Gu Chengming's figure burning with fury in the night sky before crashing into that gray human figure, like a broken frame carrying a blazing fire.
The moment the fist landed, the emotions of over a thousand people found an exit for release at the same time.
All the things that had been devoured by Sorrow, suppressed in chests until they were suffocating, and the heavy gloom that had built up all night—the moment Gu Chengming's fist made contact with Sorrow's physical form...
Su Xiaoshao raised her head abruptly in the corner of her bed. She didn't know what had happened, but the mass of stuff that had blocked her chest all night suddenly exploded, as if someone had carved a hole in her heart. All the sorrow poured out from that hole, replaced by a satisfying relief that seemed to sear her soul.
Su Qiuzhi gripped her jade pendant by the cliff, her fingernails digging into her palm. She stood up abruptly and looked up toward the night sky.
Qingluo stood up from her desk. She went to pick up the ball of crumpled paper she had thrown; her fingers trembled as she smoothed it out bit by bit. The silhouette of the man with the sword on the paper was wrinkled, but as she looked at it, she suddenly smiled.
Elder Kurong bent down and picked up that white piece that had rolled onto the floor. Her withered fingers stroked the surface of the piece, and then she placed it back on the chessboard—not in the position Yun Ni had failed to play, but in a new position.
Fu Xiaoxiao opened her eyes on the floor. Her consciousness was still blurry, but she felt that power.
In that power was fury, a desire to protect, resentment, and determination.
There was also an aura she was far too familiar with, and the sentence the other person wanted to convey to her.
—I will not leave. Never.
...
The punch landed.
The moment Sorrow's physical body came into contact with that punch, its entire frame seemed like a wax statue thrown into a furnace.
It didn't understand what was happening, why its body was shattering, or why the emotions it was supposed to devour had turned into the power that was destroying it.
It only felt an unprecedented heat that made its entire existence tremble.
It wasn't the heat of fire or spiritual energy, but the heat condensed from the collective attachment and fury of over a thousand living people in the same moment.
Sorrow did not understand, just as it didn't understand fury, protection, or why that person would stand before it.
It would never understand now.
Boom!!
Golden cracks exploded from Sorrow's chest, spreading along its torso in all directions like a shattering mirror. What poured from the cracks wasn't blood or spiritual energy, but gray, thin, and rapidly dissipating emotional remnants.
Until the moment of its death, it did not understand why those emotions hadn't become its nourishment but instead became the soil of its burial.
Like a clay sculpture struck by a heavy hammer, like thin ice smashed by a stone, like a nightmare that had lasted for a thousand years finally being punched awake by someone the moment dawn arrived.
The fragments dissipated in the night wind.
Silently, the world went quiet.
Above Hongchen Mountain, the Yin Yang Twin Fish Array slowly returned to its original trajectory of flow. The black and white qi currents once again became two swimming dragons, encircling the entire peak on the left and right.
Every trace of Sorrow was blown away by the night wind bit by bit. Those gray remnants grew thinner and thinner in the air until they eventually seemed as if they had never existed.
Xu Huayi put away her judge's pen, her legs giving way as she leaned against the stone pillar of the array hub.
Her clothes were soaked through with cold sweat, but the corners of her mouth were turned up.
"It actually worked."
She murmured, her voice carrying a trace of relief after total exhaustion.
...
Gu Chengming landed beneath the sweet osmanthus tree in the Jingsi Courtyard; he fell.
His right arm hung at his side, completely powerless. From his shoulder to his fingertips, it was covered in fine cracks, and blood dripped from his fingers, looking startling under the moonlight.
The red dust aura in his body had been completely drained by that one punch. His Sea of Consciousness was empty, and he could barely even stand steadily.
【Hundred Bones Resonating spoke with some exhaustion: Emperor Gu, the arm is still there... right?】
Gu Chengming was also exhausted. "It's still there. Thank you, Emperor Baidai."
【Hundred Bones Resonating let out a small chuckle: That's good. We killed an enemy of a higher realm again. As expected of Emperor Gu.】
【Hundred Bones Resonating Favorability +15】
Gu Chengming leaned against the trunk of the osmanthus tree, looking up at the night sky above.
The glow of the Yin Yang Twin Fish Array rained down again, gentle and warm, like a blanket covering the entirety of Hongchen Mountain.
Through the perception authority of the Yin Yang Fish that was gradually recovering, he heard the voices of those across Hongchen Mountain who had just woken from the shadow of Sorrow.
After an unknown amount of time, a series of hurried footsteps came from the distance, getting closer and faster.
Then a small figure rushed into the Jingsi Courtyard.
Fu Xiaoxiao was running so fast that she nearly tripped over the threshold when she entered, staggering a few steps before steadying herself.
Her hair was loose, tears that hadn't dried still hung on her face, her clothes were messy, and she had even put her shoes on the wrong feet. Clearly, she had rushed over at her fastest speed as soon as she regained consciousness.
Then she saw Gu Chengming leaning against the osmanthus tree.
Fu Xiaoxiao's eyes instantly turned red. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but her throat felt as if something were blocking it, and she couldn't say a single word.
In the end, she only leaned forward and rested her forehead against his shoulder.
"...You bastard, didn't you say nothing would happen tonight?" Her voice was muffled and sounded as if she were about to cry. "Is playing the hero all by yourself really that cool?!"
—Actually, it wasn't just me; Fellow Daoist Xu was there too.
Gu Chengming thought to himself, but he didn't say it out loud.
As for how Beihuan was the natural enemy of Hehuan Sect cultivators and that letting her participate would easily lead to mistakes, there was no need to say those things either.
In any case, the plan had succeeded, and besides, Gu Chengming had never even considered the possibility of failure.
The moonlight was beautiful, and the fragrance of sweet osmanthus diffused in the night wind.
He looked down at the small head huddled against his shoulder and said carefully, "In the fifteen days I'm staying in the Hehuan Sect after this, can you give me a few days of rest first?"
Fu Xiaoxiao rubbed against him. "Then in the time after that, you'll have to give me double."
【Huiyuan Sword Manual suddenly understood and, looking at the scene before it, began to write rapidly in its small notebook.】
【'You'll have to give me double in the time after that.'】
Dammit, Little Huiyuan, don't learn the bad things.
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