Chapter 35

In front of Cen Qianshan loomed a terrifying, formidable enemy, but his heart was glued to that petite figure sprinting for the tower doors.
Sure enough, it was her, hugging her backpack as she knelt by the iron gate, carefully unpacking her chemicals and sorting them with precise, quick hands.
A memory flashed through Cen Qianshan’s mind: Master teaching him this very craft, years ago.
“Blasting is risky, Qianshan. One wrong move and you’ll blow off your own fingers.” Master sat behind his workbench, lining up the bottles in his steady way. “No matter how tense the situation, your hands must never shake, and your mind must stay calm. Lay out your things first, so you don’t fumble later. For example, dragon’s blood and nautilus pearls have to be stored separately, ideally on opposite sides of your body.”
Now, that little shadow by the black tower did exactly that, dragon’s blood and nautilus pearls placed wide apart, one to each side. She fished gloves from her bag and slipped them on, movements brisk and practiced.
Master had always donned his gloves with the same crisp flair. She could almost hear his reminders, “Always wear gloves. Red dragon blood is caustic, don’t end up burning your hands again like last time. Keep yourself safe, got it?”
At the tower’s base, she was digging into the ground, but quickly switched to probing the gap beneath the door with a thin measuring strip when digging failed.
“Best case is if you can blast from inside, if not, and you’re stuck surface-blasting, you have to be precise about the charge and the angle. A good demolitions expert gets it open with one shot, and with the fewest supplies.”
That tiny silhouette at the gate overlapped, frame by frame, with his half-buried memories.
Just one crack in suspicion, and the doubts flood in, unstoppable…
The clockwork doll at their first meeting, their back-to-back fight, the blood she’d bitten from her finger still fresh along her cheek…
The truth seemed obvious. And yet, standing so close, he almost didn’t dare face it.
Was he losing his mind, or had the answer been there all along?
Cen Qianshan felt his chest twisting, blood roiling like a reverse tide, breath caught dead in his throat.
Was the dream he’d chased for a hundred years finally within reach?
Just then, distracted, he took a punch from the white-robed Wuchang and hit the ground hard, blood boiling in his veins, mouthful of crimson pouring out.
A moment ago, every bloody cough was a calculated act meant to worry her.
This time, there was no pretending. The blood gushed raw from his chest, scorching hot and painfully real, burning his throat and heart, purging a century’s worth of longing.
Fu Yun rushed over, hoisting Cen Qianshan to his feet and drawing his sword at his side.
“You good? Still breathing?” Fu Yun asked.
This oddball from the Demon Spirit Realm hadn’t joined them long, but honestly? On the battlefield, there was no better backup.
Strength, courage, loyalty, you name it. He didn’t talk much, but you could count on him.
If Fu Yun was being honest, he’d felt a whole lot steadier the instant Cen Qianshan appeared.
But right now, for reasons unknown, this usually reliable demonic cultivator just shot him a look so cold and angry it nearly froze him where he stood. Definitely not friendly.
“She said… Xiao Xue said you’re her favorite senior brother?” Cen Qianshan blurted out, completely out of left field.
Fu Yun blinked, baffled. Why would he ask that now, of all times?
He shook his head, dumbfounded. “Uh, no. She wasn’t talking about me.”
Cen Qianshan brushed him off, wiped the blood from his mouth, and his blade “Frostbite” blurred into a silver arc, surging straight at Wuchang with a wave of killing intent.
Black cloak versus white robe. Mad blade against a demon god.
The Abyssal Tower loomed, sky swallowed by the eight-armed demon’s shadow.
Swords clashed, sand and wind howled. Chaos reigned.
Cen Qianshan gripped his blood-streaked saber, weapon and man both honed to a new edge, fearless, reckless, untamed.
Wuchang gripped the blade with both hands, his shadowed eyes flashing dark in the polished steel.
“Weird… You’ve gotten stronger all of a sudden. Can emotions really give you this much power? What happened, something make you especially happy, or what?”
Cen Qianshan’s arms tensed, veins rippling as he faced off with the ghost god, his eyes sharp and frightening as the blade itself. “Why don’t you tell me? Aren’t you supposed to be great at reading minds?”
Sparks flew as eyes locked above the blade’s edge.
“You found the person you’ve been longing for, didn’t you? Is that why you’re so giddy?” Wuchang studied him carefully. “As long as she’s here, nothing else matters to you, huh?”
Even if she never admits it, even if she never sees you at all?
In a flash, they broke apart.
Cen Qianshan skidded back, regaining his stance, hard eyes narrowed amid the swirling sand, dangerous, furious, completely unyielding.
Through the storm, the solitary ghost king stood, white robes billowing, an empty hollow in his chest.
“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Cen Qianshan realized, mouth twisting up in a sly, taunting smirk as the fury bled away and he straightened his back. “Jealous that I’ve got someone worth hoping for. And you? You’ve got nothing.”
He tapped two long fingers to his own chest. “You’re great at messing with people, getting off on watching others squirm and despair. You even got me, once. But you, have you ever really suffered yourself?”
Wuchang’s mask-like face tilted downward, those dark eyes flickering. His long, straight black hair whipped wildly in the wind, as if he couldn’t quite conjure up a snappy comeback for this human.
Suddenly, a thunderous explosion roared through the air, shaking the earth and sky. Debris poured down in a dusty rain.
As the smoke and dust cleared, the black iron door of the Abyssal Tower stood blasted open.
While Wuchang in his white robes was still busy thinking up comebacks, he realized every single enemy had already bolted, except for the hulking, eight-armed demon god, who was desperately trying to pin him down.
“Hurry up, get inside!” Uncle Zhong called from the gaping hole where the tower doors had been,
Mu Xue, supporting Miao Hong’er, was the first to dart through the opening, followed closely by Fu Yun and Cen Qianshan.
Inside, the world was nothing short of otherworldly.
The tower had no internal floors. With just a glance upward, they saw a sky’s worth of stars swirling across the vaulting inner wall, a glittering night above them.
Beneath that starlit sky, the tower’s base was a pool of inky-black water, utterly still, except for a single little boat floating on its surface.
Stars spun overhead; in the night, the little boat waited at anchor.
The chaos and clamor of battle were completely shut out; here, all was peace, as if it were the resting place for a weary heart.
Meanwhile, outside the tower, Wuchang’s masklike face finally twisted with fury. Eyebrows arched high and sharp, he opened his mouth in a soundless howl.
The air grew bitingly cold; ghostly winds swept in from all sides. Across the city, every shade and specter began converging on the Abyssal Tower. Thousands wailed in unison, a sea of restless souls.
Layer upon layer, like smoke and shadows, the surging tide of spirits stormed forward in a relentless flood.
“Now! Everyone on the boat!”
Arm in arm, the group scrambled aboard that slender little boat. Uncle Zhong heaved the battered iron door back into place, then, still facing away, guarding the entrance, sat down hard with his back to it.
Countless ghosts crashed against the door, piling on and clawing desperately at the warping seams; pale limbs reached frantically through every gap, flailing and grasping.
Uncle Zhong’s fingers moved in a secret dharma seal as he slumped behind the door; at his brow bloomed a golden swastika.
He was stooped, thin, haloed by white hair, but just by sitting there, not a single ghost among the countless horde managed to budge that trembling gate a single inch.
“Uncle Zhong, come on, get in the boat!”
“Yeah, don’t just sit there! We’re leaving together!”
The others called out to him.
The little boat bobbed gently on the black water. So close to the old man, whose brow glowed with gentle warmth, even his deeply lined face softened into a smile,
“Go on, all of you. I’ve thought it through. I’m not going back, better I just stay and keep my wife company.”
“When I was young, I never spent enough time by her side. Now I’m old anyway, if I can stay here with her, I won’t have any regrets.”
“Spending this final journey with you young folks has made me happy, truly.”
“Go. Leaving an old man behind is a much better trade than having everyone trapped here.”
If the door opened, every ghost would descend, and no one aboard would escape alive.
The boat was just waiting. All it’d take was a gentle push; they could leave, hard as it was, and trade one man’s life for the rest to survive.
But Fu Yun stretched out his hand.
“We go together, we fight together. No leaving anyone behind, no matter our age, not even if it costs us everything.”
Dressed in blue and white, the young hero burned with righteous spirit.
Miao Hong’er reached out too,
“I think Granny would want you to move on, to let go of the past and keep chasing your dreams. We can’t just leave you behind here.”
Red as fire, grinning boldly, a true heroine.
Mu Xue couldn’t help thinking, My senior brother and sister are such idiots. At a time like this, trading your own life for everyone else’s escape, what could be more logical? Uncle Zhong even volunteered for it!
She was anxious and frustrated.
What made it worse was, for some reason, her own little arm was reaching out too, helping her seniors haul Uncle Zhong onto the boat.
Right then, a hand wrapped in bandages slipped past her, landing on Uncle Zhong’s shoulder.
“Relax. Who says it’s over yet?”
Tears glimmered at Uncle Zhong’s eyes as the golden glow at his brow faded away. At last, the others dragged him onto the boat with all their combined strength.
The slim little boat shot away from shore, like an arrow loosed from the string.
The tower doors burst open. Countless ghosts and wraiths swept in, frigid as arctic mist, filling the sky as they surged across the waters. Those twisted, chalk-white shapes rose from the black water, howling and clawing after the boat, furious at being left behind.
The others forced Mu Xue to the boat’s center, shielding her on all sides. She peered through the gaps. Beyond the open door, above that boiling tide of spirits, stood a solitary white figure, still as a ghost.
High hat, long black hair, a silent watcher, staring back at her inside the tower.
Suddenly, he raised a hand and made a signaling motion.
In that instant, all those writhing ghosts at the stern went still, as if frozen. Then, like a tide pulled away, they receded one by one, vanishing in perfect silence.
They came roaring, yet retreated without a trace.
The little boat glided over black water, leaving not even a ripple in its wake.
Round and round the star-lit tower walls, the boat climbed higher and higher, rising as if to slip right out of the tower, sailing into that boundless, glittering sky beyond.
The boat seemed to glide the edge of heaven, skirting the floating tower’s heights, with all the bright cosmos unfurling overhead.
Or perhaps it drifted across an endless mirrored lake, galaxies shifting in its depths, so even the mountains beneath their feet seemed to belong to another world.
“This is the River of Forgetting. For souls ready to let go, it leads to reincarnation, another chance at life.” Miao Hong’er squeezed Mu Xue’s little hand, quietly pointing. “Look over there.”
Countless tiny boats, glowing like fireflies, sailed past from places unknown, each carrying a soul toward the next life.
Mu Xue craned her neck, peering curiously at the soul-ferries drifting through the night.
Suddenly her eyes went wide; she shot to her feet in surprise.
On a passing boat, a woman stood at the prow, wrapped in a woolen shawl, her eyes gentle and kind. As their boats crossed, she smiled and waved softly at Mu Xue.
And among the endless river of boats, way off in the distance, were figures she recognized, former friends and rivals, companions left behind: fellow students with tangled histories of resentment and support, partners with bonds cut short and roads unfinished.
“We’re off now, Xiao Xue!” Someone gave Mu Xue a wave as they left.
A little girl missing her front teeth sat on a tiny boat, waving wildly at Miao Hong’er with her tiny arms. “Big sis, remember to eat well! You have to take good care of yourself, okay?”
Miao Hong’er’s eyes went red, but she smiled back at her.
An elderly woman, hair shot through with white and back bent with age, came floating by at the prow of another boat, a basket of oranges on her arm.
She peeled the fruit slowly and carefully, fingers nimble despite the years, and from the segments crafted a tiny lantern.
Lighting it, she set the small orange lamp afloat on the mirrored water, her wrinkled hands giving it the gentlest push. The glowing orange lantern drifted lazily over and bobbed right into Uncle Zhong’s hands.
As their boats passed, that frail white hair seemed to darken, the wrinkles fading off her face until there sat once more the youthful bride of so long ago, waving merrily to her husband in a final goodbye.
Uncle Zhong held that small orange lantern, eyes following her boat as it slipped away, tears streaming down his face.
Of all sorrow, parting alone is the most heart-wrenching.
Life is like that, moons wax and wane; the past, once gone, can never be reclaimed.