Mu Ran said, "Although you look very much like Jinzhi, I can just feel that you are not him. He wouldn't look at me with such an assessing gaze, and he absolutely wouldn't leave Little Fish behind."
He said, "An intuition without any rhyme or reason? Hmm, I really am not good at handling things without cause and effect."
The young man seemed to be annoyed, but his tone was so flat. Rather than annoyance, it was more like he was simply stating the fact that there were times when he couldn't do things well either.
He lowered his eyes to look at Mu Ran again, his lips curling into a smile. "My surname is Xie, and my name is Guanxin."
Mu Ran only felt that this name sounded somewhat familiar. She thought for a long time before recalling that when she was very young, while browsing the history of other sects, she had accidentally seen the three words "Xie Guanxin" in the history of Chongyang Mountain from ten thousand years ago.
She exclaimed in shock, "You are the patriarch of Chongyang Mountain!"
But historical records clearly stated that Xie Guanxin had fallen ten thousand years ago. Before his death, he passed the position of sect master to his disciple. Over the past ten thousand years, the sect master had changed for countless generations, and Chongyang Mountain also had new founding masters. Yet, no one could have ever imagined that this very first patriarch was actually still alive.
Xie Guanxin said, "You and I have known each other for over five hundred years, so it wouldn't hurt for you to call me by my name."
Mu Ran felt even more shocked. "The Yue Qingfeng that I knew so well... was you all along?"
Xie Guanxin asked with a smile, "Are you very surprised?"
It was more than just surprise.
She felt a bone-chilling terror!
Mu Ran said, "As early as five hundred years ago, you killed Yue Qingfeng."
"He was a disciple I liked very much. He had an excellent constitution, extremely high talent in swordsmanship, and was upright and open. His pure heart made people cherish him. But it was precisely because of his purity and cleanness that I had to choose him."
Taking on the identity of Master Yuwei, Xie Guanxin would always feel a sense of trance when teaching Yue Qingfeng, as if he had crossed ten thousand years of time and space to see his own energetic and hot-blooded youthful self.
Perhaps because of this, his affection for Yue Qingfeng was not faked. If possible, he would not have chosen to sacrifice Yue Qingfeng.
That day, his body as Master Yuwei was about to rot and collapse. If he didn't find a suitable body to mold, his soul would turn to ash and perish.
At that time, inside the cave dwelling.
His inner demon was jumping up and down in anger. "Fine, Xie Guanxin, you want to be a good person, deliberately letting Yue Qingfeng go down the mountain at this time to stay away from us. Do you think you can hold back from touching him and let him keep his life? Look at your ghostly appearance now! Your flesh and blood body is rotting. It won't be long before you turn into a lump of rotten meat paralyzed on the ground!"
The inner demon questioned sharply, "Xie Guanxin, don't you regret it!"
In the shadows hidden from the light, Xie Guanxin lowered his eyes and looked at his hand. With a single movement, a few pieces of rotten flesh would fall off. The rotting stench was so disgusting that even flies wouldn't dare approach.
How could the once peerless genius of his generation end up in such a state?
Finally, he sighed.
He did regret it.
On the small path to the town, Yue Qingfeng saw his master appearing in a black robe, and his eyes lit up. "Master!"
But what answered him was a flash of sword light.
Yue Qingfeng's death came without any pain, so when his spiritual roots and flesh were stripped away, he could no longer feel any agony.
The last thing he saw was still his master's familiar face. The eyes that had once taught him to keep his heart righteous and steadfast should have been just as gentle.
Over ten thousand years, after all of Xie Guanxin's emotions had been worn away, the only shred of pity left in him was used on Yue Qingfeng.
Thus, he became Yue Qingfeng.
This time, changing bodies felt a little different from before.
Xie Guanxin didn't know if he was affected by Yue Qingfeng's flesh and blood, or if he really felt like he had returned to ten thousand years ago, becoming his youthful self who would slay the wicked, eradicate evil, and promote good.
Seeing injustice on the road, he would draw his sword to help. Seeing evildoers run rampant, he would strike to punish them.
Wherever his sword light reached, evil spirits dispersed, and the weak gained a moment of respite.
He walked through the markets and treaded across the mountains and wilderness, seeking neither fame nor reward, relying solely on a pure heart to guard the righteous path of the mortal world.
However, what was fake was fake. Time could not flow backward, and he could not truly return to the past.
He was Xie Guanxin, and he could only be Xie Guanxin.
The man with an ancient soul sighed softly once again. "If I had discovered Cang Shubai earlier, perhaps Qingfeng could have survived."
Mu Ran's hands were trembling. "What have you done to Jinzhi!"
A layer of pity surfaced in Xie Guanxin's eyes, a mix of truth and falsehood that even he couldn't clearly distinguish.
"Right now, the one living inside this body before you is me. What do you think could have happened to him?" His tone was as light as a sigh. "Naturally, he met the same fate as Qingfeng."
"I'll kill you—!"
Like a madwoman, Mu Ran drove her spiritual energy straight towards his heart, her killing intent freezing cold.
But Xie Guanxin just looked at her quietly and said flatly, "If you kill me, the only trace of Cang Shubai left in this world will be completely gone."
In that instant, the spiritual energy about to pierce his heart suddenly froze, suspended within his flesh and blood, unable to advance even half an inch.
Mu Ran trembled violently all over. Scalding tears fell without warning, winding down her pale cheeks. Yet, in those tear-filled eyes, an intense killing intent surged.
Xie Guanxin had never seen such tears before. They were not out of weakness or pleading, but a weeping-blood kind of hatred wrapped in inch-by-inch heartbreak, so sharp it seemed ready to perish together with him.
Xie Guanxin had long forgotten what true emotion tasted like.
His pity was acted out, his gentleness was faked. Over ten thousand years, even pain and joy had become blurred and dull.
But at this moment, Mu Ran's trembling yet unyielding killing intent caused the heart in his chest—which had long ceased to belong to him—to inexplicably start beating rapidly.
It was a long-lost, almost unfamiliar thing called emotion.
He felt as if he had suddenly seen emotions again, and tasted the weight of love and hate once more.
Then, his fingertips trembled slightly. The layer of false pity in his eyes peeled away layer by layer, replaced by a trace of almost greedy excitement that even he hadn't noticed.
"Mu Ran," Xie Guanxin said. "You want Cang Shubai, don't you?"
He looked at her tearful eyes tempered with killing intent, and a low, hoarse laugh rolled softly from his throat.
"I can become Cang Shubai. Using his body, using his name, for the thousands and ten thousands of years to come, I can do better than him." He grabbed her hand, the one that could crush his heart at any moment, and said excitedly, "Mu Ran, let me be your husband. You can love me."
Before his voice had faded, a piercing chill suddenly swept across heaven and earth. An ice-sealing coldness pressed in crazily from all directions, freezing even the air until it made crisp cracking sounds.
A figure in green clothes with white hair condensed into shape in an instant, so fast that only a cold, residual shadow of light remained.
Mu Ran felt a surge of joy in her heart. "Jinzhi!"
Xie Guanxin's heart suddenly seized. He hastily raised his hand to block, but a tyrannical force capable of shattering mountains and splitting rocks slammed violently into his palm. A numbing sensation shot through his arm bones, and the sheer impact forced him to stagger half a step back, breaking his grip on Mu Ran's hand.
Cang Shubai did not even give his opponent a chance to steady himself. Stretching out his long arm, he firmly pulled Mu Ran back behind him. He used his own body as an impenetrable shield, tucking her safely into his shadow, refusing to let even a sliver of danger touch her.
He left Xie Guanxin absolutely no room to breathe or recover. A pitch-black spear, surging with a violent and murderous aura, tore through the air. The tip of the spear gleamed with a bone-chilling light as it thrust directly toward Xie Guanxin's heart.
Xie Guanxin's expression shifted. In the nick of time, he hastily materialized a longsword in his palm, raising the blade horizontally to take the blow head-on.
Clang!
The deafening clash of weapons echoed across the wilderness. The tremendous force behind the spear slammed into the sword, nearly knocking it out of Xie Guanxin's grasp.
The webbing between Xie Guanxin's thumb and index finger tore open in agonizing pain. Forced back three steps, he managed to survive the fatal strike, but his previous composure and manic excitement were entirely gone, replaced by utter wretchedness.
When he raised his eyes again, he was met with the sight of a young man whose white hair whipped wildly around him, his green robes fluttering fiercely in the wind. The young man's crimson eyes were as dark and ruthless as the fires of hell.
Cang Shubai's cold, vicious voice rang out, every single word dripping with a violent urge to crush the man before him:
"Using a counterfeit shell of my body and spouting such disgusting delusions, you old fool..."
The corners of his lips curled into a chillingly beautiful yet utterly contemptuous smile. His voice was low and hoarse, overflowing with monstrous killing intent.
"You think you are worthy to replace me?"
