Perhaps it really was love at first sight.
After clearing away the aftermath, the cultivators of Wei City set up another barrier at the entrance to the underground palace. Of course, unlike that absurdly overpowered “As Expected of Me” senior brother, this one merely sealed off the demonic aura and kept others from approaching. Then they gathered the wounded, along with Master Huaigu—dazed, devastated, and bald overnight—and sounded the retreat.
Perhaps it was only an illusion, but Shu Fu could no longer sense Master Huaigu’s usual oppressive presence from the frail, aged figure before her.
Was losing cultivation after heartbreak actually a real thing?
Over the course of just a few hours, they had uncovered the truth of the Flower Children Temple, eliminated the threat of Demon Lord Ninglu, unexpectedly rescued their old friend Ye Shusheng, and, incidentally, harvested Master Huaigu’s magnificent head of hair...
Though that last part was rather strange. In any case, for Shu Fu, it had been a thrilling and fruitful night.
After returning to the inn, she exchanged a few hasty words with the others before immediately collapsing onto her bed and sinking into dreamless sleep.
...
That night, the moon shone bright in a clear sky.
Dawn was close at hand. Those meant to sleep had already fallen asleep, while those meant to wake had yet to stir. The crisscrossing streets were nearly deserted; only the shadows of trees and flowers slanted across the ground. It was the quietest hour of the day in Wei City. Moreover, Wei Tianjiao had ordered a curfew, and the usual atmosphere of revelry had faded considerably.
During past Flower Festivals, the cities of Yao and Wei would remain brightly lit through the night, their laughter and cheers soaring into the heavens. It was rare to experience such a tranquil, faintly desolate stillness.
Atop the Tower of a Hundred Flowers, the tallest building in the city center, a tall figure stood against the wind. His face was as clear and luminous as moonlight, while his black robes billowed around him like an eagle spreading its wings. He seemed almost one with the night sky itself, as though he might ascend beyond the mortal world at any moment.
“...”
He looked out over the entire city, his gaze extending all the way to the distant horizon. His eyes were dark and unfathomable; the lights of the city flickered in their depths, revealing not the slightest hint of emotion.
Then, suddenly, a crisp, pleasant cry rang out. A great bird, white from head to tail, descended beside him. Upon landing, it transformed into the graceful figure of Liu Ruyi.
“Sir.”
The windblown figure striking a pose was none other than Jiang Xuesheng. Liu Ruyi did not bother with pleasantries, getting straight to the point.
“I have already met with the City Lord of Wei. Together with Miss Wei, I conveyed to her the traces we discovered in the underground palace. The City Lord has agreed to clear the Flower Children’s name in hers, abolish the worship of the Flower Children from this day forth, and turn Wei City’s Flower Festival into an ordinary festival for admiring flowers.”
To abolish, in one stroke, a faith that had endured in the region for thousands of years would surely be a difficult process. There would undoubtedly be doubt and resentment among the people.
Even so, it was something that had to be done.
To give the dead an answer.
To ensure that the living would not repeat the same mistakes.
With Wei Tianjiao’s fearless resolve, she would surely succeed.
When Jiang Xuesheng did not respond, Liu Ruyi stepped closer, concern in her voice.
“Sir, are you all right?”
Only then did Jiang Xuesheng lazily lift his eyelids and cast her a cool sideways glance.
“What could possibly be wrong with me?”
“Sir, are you still trying to hide it from me?”
Liu Ruyi would not let it go. “You channeled spiritual power to help Junior Sister open the mountain, and then played a killing melody on the battlefield to aid Ninglu and me in our duel. That is not something a mere ‘split soul’ could accomplish. No—rather…”
“—Just how much spiritual power did you leave within this split soul?”
“Simply making the best use of what I have.”
Jiang Xuesheng smiled mildly. “Ordinary cultivators are constrained by their physical vessels. Even after releasing a split soul, the greater part of their soul-force remains in the ‘main body,’ so a split soul’s abilities are limited. I have no such concern. I can be bolder in all things, since the ‘main body’ is merely a borrowed shell anyway.”
Liu Ruyi said, “Then your true ‘main body’...”
Jiang Xuesheng replied, “Don’t worry. It hasn’t rotted away yet. In another three thousand years, if we dig it up and leave it out in the sun, it should still be usable.”
“...”
Liu Ruyi was rendered speechless by the retort. He knew Jiang Xuesheng had his own sense of measure and needed no reminders, so he casually changed the subject. “Your main— I mean, the ‘borrowed shell’ you’re using is currently in the demon realm. Have you discovered anything? What exactly is Zhao Jiuge’s background?”
Zhao Jiuge—the First of the Seven Demon Lords, and the only designated villain among the Four Demon Kings.
Aside from Lingxiao City, Zhao Jiuge and the forces of demon cultivators and demonic cultivators under his command could be said to pose the greatest threat in the cultivation world.
This time, Jiang Xuesheng had divided his attention between two tasks. On one hand, he had worked with Shu Fu to deal with the matter of Wei City’s Flower Festival; on the other, he had ventured deep into the demon realm and quietly caused Zhao Jiuge a few “minor inconveniences,” preventing him from making any rash moves or profiting from the chaos in Central Province.
“You mean that? It’s nothing major. During this investigation of the demon realm, I more or less confirmed my earlier suspicions.”
Jiang Xuesheng sat cross-legged on the ground and summoned an ancient qin onto his lap with a flick of his hand. Seemingly unconcerned, he idly plucked out a few notes, which gradually linked together into a light-hearted folk tune from the mountains.
“In my opinion…”
As he calmly played, he spoke in the same offhand manner. “Zhao Jiuge, the First of the Seven Demon Lords, is the reincarnation of the Heavenly Demon from three thousand years ago.”
Liu Ruyi: “?????”
He nearly failed to catch his breath, privately suspecting that Jiang Xuesheng had started playing background music first for fear that he might suffer a heart attack from the shock.
“Wait... what? He really is?!”
Liu Ruyi braced himself against the railing. So moved by his master’s thoughtfulness that he was nearly dizzy, he almost wanted to peck Jiang Xuesheng on the back of the head with his beak. “You once said that, during the demonic calamity that ravaged the Five Provinces three thousand years ago, the most troublesome foe was the leading Heavenly Demon. He even smashed a chip out of one of your horns.”
The more worried he became, the faster he spoke. “The Heavenly Demon is unlike ordinary demonic cultivators. He is born able to turn all the world’s demonic energy to his own use—the greatest natural enemy of righteous cultivators. If you and the Five Phoenixes had not devised a plan to draw all the demonic energy of the Five Provinces deep into the earth’s veins, then seal and suppress it, no one could have harmed him in the slightest. Now that the Heavenly Demon has returned, and the Five Phoenixes are incomplete—if the seal is broken...”
Jiang Xuesheng nodded. “Exactly. Conversely, as long as the seal suppressing the demonic energy remains intact, even the cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice. The Heavenly Demon, Zhao Jiuge, is nothing more than an ordinary demonic cultivator. And if we gather all Five Phoenixes and find a way to purify the demonic energy completely, we can settle the matter once and for all and bring peace to the realm.”
“But.”
He paused, then bluntly overturned his own argument.
“I have always felt that as long as something like a ‘seal’ exists, someone will eventually break it. In cultivation-world storybooks, seals seem to exist solely so they can be broken.”
Assuming he was once again making one of his ridiculous remarks, Liu Ruyi grimaced as though her teeth ached. “We are not characters in some storybook. Stop being so alarmist.”
“Who can say? Perhaps we are characters in one after all, only too bewildered to realize it.”
Jiang Xuesheng lightly stroked the strings of his qin, a cryptic smile playing on his lips. “In fact, during the years I lay sleeping, I seemed to glimpse one possible ending to this ‘storybook’ in the space between dreaming and waking.”
The conversation was growing more and more fantastical. Liu Ruyi dismissed it inwardly, but still played along. “What ending?”
“It was nothing much.”
As usual, Jiang Xuesheng began in an offhand manner, but what followed was downright chilling:
“Because of the tangled loves and hatreds among several men and women, the Heavenly Demon rose to power, and the seal that the Five Phoenixes and I had risked our lives to create was nearly broken. At the cost of countless lives, we barely managed to hold the final line, buying this battered world one last breath.”
“Sometimes I wonder whether I awoke from three thousand years of slumber precisely to change that ending.”
Liu Ruyi: “...”
That sounded utterly miserable! It had to be a tragic story!
Fortunately, none of that tragedy had happened yet.
Though the Heavenly Demon Zhao Jiuge had already begun to gain strength, and the Yuanchu lineage of Lingxiao City had taken a dangerous, unconventional path in pursuit of its ambitions, the righteous side was far from weak. With the Ninefold Splendor Sect and the Mystic Jade Palace as they now stood, together with the friends they had made over the years, such as Wu Yao and Wei Tianjiao, they might yet have a fighting chance.
They had to win this battle.
“If we lose, would that not make my three thousand years a complete waste?”
Jiang Xuesheng sighed. “If I had been awake during those three thousand years, how could I possibly have allowed an unfilial descendant like Ling Fengqing to be born?”
Yes, thought Liu Ruyi. You would have fried him while he was still an egg, then sliced him into strips and fed him to the fish.
“By the way, sir.”
With the urgent matter settled for the moment, Liu Ruyi suddenly recalled another important question, one he had to ask clearly. “Have you told Junior Sister about your identity? This is a matter of life and death. Since you are fond of her, it would hardly be right to keep hiding it from her.”
“...”
Jiang Xuesheng had not expected the conversation to take such an abrupt turn and was caught off guard. “I do not have feelings for her... No, I have not told her yet. But Fu’er has always been very clever. I think she must have guessed some of it already.” He swiftly changed the subject. “Ling Fengqing is a formidable enemy. I worry that learning the truth will leave her anxious and distracted. We can wait until the tournament is over.”
“Fine. Then it will be within the next day or two.”
Liu Ruyi clapped her hands and laughed, looking as gratified and content as an old mother. “Sir, it truly wasn’t easy waiting for you to come to your senses. I thought that, after finally returning from the dead, you’d just end up alone for the rest of your life.”
“May I ask—over these past three years, at exactly what moment did our little junior sister make the otherworldly ‘Dragon God’ succumb to mortal love?”
“Perhaps it was love at first sight. The moment I saw her, she felt familiar somehow, as though I had met her in a dream.”
Jiang Xuesheng gave a perfunctory answer, then flicked a sleeve at her with faint irritation. “Don’t call me the Dragon God. If I really were a god, I’d have been angered to death by the idiots in this world long ago—and joined Shu Fu in embracing that Marxist atheism.”
With a wry, helpless smile, he added, “It is precisely because I’m not a god, and because I still can’t put this mortal world out of my mind, that I was angered back to life after being dead for three thousand years.”
Liu Ruyi: “...”
—No, you didn’t actually die back then, did you?
—And come to think of it, who exactly was Marx? Some great master from which mountain or immortal abode? Why was little junior sister so devoted to him???
…
…
Over the following two days, Shu Fu spent her time recuperating, training, and waiting in bored idleness.
Wei Tianjiao was a woman of swift and decisive action. The truth about the “Flower Children” had already spread throughout Wei City; before long, neighboring Yao City would surely awaken from its thousand-year dream as well.
Paper could never keep fire hidden forever. No matter how carefully a lie was woven, it could not conceal the grievous injustice that had brought snow in June.
The streets of Wei City were still overflowing with flowers, blooming in a dazzling profusion. Yet many residents had replaced their brightly colored bouquets with white ones, offering a belated thread of mourning.
They had no power to change the tragedy of a thousand years ago. They could only pray for the dead in this way.
Clock towers stood at each of Wei City’s four sides, originally meant to ring warnings in times of danger. In recent days, deep and far-reaching bells had sounded each morning and evening.
They were funeral bells for the past, and warning bells for the future.
Wei City had, in the end, changed.
Through the tireless governance of Wei Tianjiao and generations before her, the land that had once, a thousand years ago, bred sin and monstrous lies had now become fertile ground for integrity, tolerance, and a hundred flowers blooming in their own splendor.
On this land, there would never again be new Flower Children.
Amid the solemn, majestic pealing of bells, this year’s Flower Festival—unlike any before it—finally reached its climax, and its conclusion—
The eagerly anticipated arena tournament had begun.
