***
Perfected Renhua’s tone was flat, as though he were making a casual remark.
Yet every word he spoke seemed like a fine thread, one by one, strand by strand, piercing through Wenren Ying’s flesh and burrowing straight into his bones and soul. It was as though Wenren Ying had become a puppet on strings, stripped of all awareness of self.
Wenren Ying remained kneeling where he was… Perfected Renhua looked down at him from above, feeling extremely satisfied. Forcing Wenren Ying into submission gave him the strange feeling that he, too, might be able to evade Heaven’s punishment.
So long as he ascended… So long as he ascended…
After ascending, he would truly become immortal and indestructible, free to roam through the three thousand worlds, rising with the wind and returning wherever he pleased. The gloom brought about by the Donghua Blood Moon would soon be swept away!
But Wenren Ying had not moved!
The moment he heard the command, he should have carried it out without hesitation. Yet at that very moment, the muscles along Wenren Ying’s back rose in distinct knots, making him look like a wild beast. His breathing was so heavy, so rough, that he no longer resembled a once lofty sect disciple. Instead, he was like a trapped animal…
He had not moved because he was still resisting!
Perfected Renhua was startled. His cultivation was far above Wenren Ying’s, and when he had acted against his disciple just now, he had shown no mercy whatsoever. Yet Wenren Ying could still resist? He was still resisting?!
All at once, a towering fury surged to the crown of Perfected Renhua’s head.
The Wenren Ying before him now completely overlapped with the Wenren Ying of two hundred years ago. Of course, the man he saw now was more weathered and more mature… Yet that appearance—that refusal to give up, that unwillingness to release his obsession even unto death—had not changed in the slightest!
“Obstinate fool!”
Perfected Renhua suddenly shouted.
Wenren Ying seemed not to hear him at all… His eyes had already gone unfocused, the very sign that he had been controlled by the Soul-Seizing Art. Yet every muscle in his body remained tense, and he was even trembling faintly… Even with his soul completely under control, he absolutely refused to submit so easily!
Perfected Renhua was practically beside himself with rage.
Wenren Ying… Wenren Ying…!
Wenren Ying was far too special. His obsession was far too special. That obsession had deeply wounded Perfected Renhua two hundred years ago, and now, once again, it pierced him to the heart!
“I should have killed you, you lowborn wretch! Why didn’t you just die in Donghua City?!”
He lost all restraint, spitting out one vile insult after another. Born low, should have died long ago, vermin, a stinking bug…
Since the day he was born, Perfected Renhua had never cursed anyone like this, because such words would have damaged his own dignity.
People of noble status were not necessarily free of malice. More often, their malice merely existed in a concealed form, wrapped in a façade of moral rectitude.
If one saw their lofty bearing and refined manners and consequently formed all kinds of fantasies about them… then anyone who thought that way was undoubtedly the greatest fool in the world.
At that moment, Perfected Renhua was beside himself with rage, and even after cursing Wenren Ying, he still did not feel satisfied. He suddenly drove his foot into Wenren Ying’s chest!
No matter how close Perfected Renhua was to death, his cultivation and realm still surpassed Wenren Ying’s by an unknown distance!
The kick sent Wenren Ying sprawling from his kneeling position. A mouthful of blood sprayed from his lips, and he curled up on the ground, breathing in agony and weakness… At some point, autumn rain had begun to fall over Mount Mei. Perfected Renhua kicked Wenren Ying out of the grotto-heaven, and he collapsed into the rain, drenched from head to toe.
A streak of pitch-black light suddenly tore through the endless curtain of rain and lashed heavily against Wenren Ying’s body!
The Soul-Striking Whip.
This was another treasure belonging to the Yuntai Yan clan, a magical artifact used to enforce family laws and discipline. The Soul-Striking Whip would not damage a person’s body, but every strike passed through the flesh and struck directly at the victim’s soul, forcing the one being punished to experience a cruel agony unlike anything else in the world.
At that moment, Perfected Renhua activated the Soul-Striking Whip and made it lash Wenren Ying without pause. The whip’s dreadful cracks continued one after another, while Wenren Ying let out sounds of terrible, tightly suppressed pain. In the end, he could not even make those instinctive noises anymore. His eyes unfocused, he lay sprawled on the ground, having lost the last of his strength to resist.
Only then did Perfected Renhua feel his anger ease.
The Soul-Striking Whip would bring a person’s soul to the very limit of suffering… And pain naturally distracted the mind. Wenren Ying had been struggling desperately against the Soul-Seizing Art; how could he still spare any awareness to resist?
Now, Wenren Ying had submitted completely.
Perfected Renhua looked at his eldest disciple, lying on the ground like a dead dog, and at last allowed a vicious smile to spread across his face.
At that moment, the bearing of a grandmaster and the transcendent air of an exalted expert had completely fallen away from him. Anyone who saw him could tell at a glance that he was nothing but a deranged, obsessive, vicious beast.
After a long while, the beast spoke slowly. “Did you remember what I said?”
Wenren Ying’s eyes had lost all focus, as though his soul had already departed.
He opened and closed his mouth. “I remember.”
Perfected Renhua continued slowly, “What did I just say?”
Wenren Ying replied, “Bring… bring… Wu Guanyue here.”
Perfected Renhua narrowed his eyes. “I want her alive, not dead. Do you understand?”
Wenren Ying seemed utterly unaware as he nodded.
Perfected Renhua glanced sideways at him.
He had poured almost all of his malice into Wenren Ying. After venting it, he felt a kind of exhilarating satisfaction, one that made him reluctant to stop.
So he said to Wenren Ying, “Break all four of her limbs. Leave her alive, and nothing more.”
Wenren Ying continued to nod blankly.
He slowly rose from the ground and began walking, step by step, like a puppet, toward Mount Mei City—to the inn he regarded as home.
***
And at that very moment, Wu Guanyue was still waiting for Wenren Ying to return.
Rain had begun falling outside. It struck the roof tiles, and strings of water droplets kept tumbling from the eaves. The lantern by the door illuminated the rain-soaked flagstones, while the lantern flame itself fluttered restlessly in the autumn wind.
Ah… It was raining…
Late autumn… It was already very cold. When the autumn wind carried the rain indoors and blew against Wu Guanyue, she could not help shivering.
Although… she still could not quite understand it. If the body she was using now was a puppet body, then why could the puppet still feel cold?
Of course, that was not an important question. The more important question was—
If even Little Yue’s puppet felt cold, then would Brother Ying be cold too at that very moment?
Mm… Brother Ying…
Why hadn’t he come back yet, even though it was so late?
The long wait gradually filled Wu Guanyue’s heart with an uneasy feeling. She grew restless, and couldn’t help regretting it… If only she had asked Bai Yunsheng where exactly Brother Ying was going to meet his master before he left.
Now, all her anxiousness amounted to was futile worry. She didn’t even know where to look for him.
Feeling miserable, Wu Guanyue rested her head on the table. Like any wife consumed by worry, countless accidents flashed through her mind in an instant. Her thoughts ran wild, only to be immediately overturned as she told herself: Brother Ying was such a reliable and formidable person. Nothing could have happened to him. Nothing could have happened.
This was what it felt like to have someone on your mind.
“Worry”—what a torment it was. And yet everyone hoped to have someone to worry about, and to be worried about in return.
Wu Guanyue turned her back to the door and sat facing away from it, deciding that she would stop glancing toward the entrance every few moments.
Suddenly, amid the soft patter of rain, she seemed to hear the familiar sound of footsteps.
Wu Guanyue spun around at once. She snatched up the oiled-paper umbrella beside her and rushed outside, opening it as she ran.
Sure enough, on the long street stood a familiar figure, slowly making his way toward the inn.
He was drenched from head to toe. The bamboo hat he always wore was nowhere to be seen, and his hair lay in disarray against his forehead and the side of his face. He walked one step at a time, his pace even a little unsteady. His soaked clothes clung completely to his body, and even from this distance, Wu Guanyue could see the sharp outline of his figure through the curtain of rain.
Oh dear! How had he managed to get himself into such a state?
Both angry and worried, Wu Guanyue hurried over and rose on tiptoe to hold the umbrella high above Brother Ying’s head.
The rain suddenly stopped.
At least within this small patch of sky, within this tiny world sheltered by the umbrella, the rain had stopped.
Wu Guanyue tilted her head back and looked at her Brother Ying.
Rainwater rolled down Wenren Ying’s face, yet he didn’t even blink. It made him look cold and heartless, like a statue carved from stone.
It wasn’t until she drew close that Wu Guanyue noticed something was terribly wrong.
What had happened? How had Brother Ying ended up like this?
A trace of blood still lingered at the corner of his mouth. His face was pale and expressionless. His clothes weren’t merely soaked through—they were covered in mud and water…
W-What had happened?
Had Brother Ying been beaten by someone?!
Wu Guanyue was furious… But beneath that fury was an even stronger ache of concern. She could hear the harsh, trembling breaths he drew, each one sounding as though he were enduring some terrible pain.
Wu Guanyue quickly pulled a small handkerchief from her robe and wiped his face.
“Brother Ying, let’s go back first. Lean on me, and we’ll walk slowly.”
She spoke with calmness and gentleness, taking Wenren Ying’s hand in one of hers and slowly leading him toward the inn.
His unfocused eyes suddenly shifted. His nostrils twitched lightly, and he took a sniff.
Amid the damp scent of rain was another fragrance—dry, warm, and deeply inviting.
The scent was coming from her.
Wenren Ying’s fingers suddenly spasmed in pain.
Nothing.
