Chapter 97: Two Sides 2

In march, a sea of flowers blooming in the Demon Valley. Being tortured and flogged by Princess Shunde inside a dungeon. The corpse of Lin Canglan sitting on a chair with a silent Lin Haoqing nearby. At the end, she also saw a black iron cage with blood all over the floor, the jiaoren suspended on the wall, and his huge lotus tail...

Everything rushed into her mind at once. She heard countless people calling out the name "Ji Yunhe". Luo Jinsang, Qu Xiaoxing, Lin Haoqing, and Changyi...

They were all calling to her.

"Changyi..."

Changyi finally came to a stop. It was not because he heard Ji Yunhe's voice, but because he had reached his destination -- a shimmering seabed full of lingzhi that glowed and illuminated their surroundings.

The moment he released her into the giant cluster of lingzhi, he saw her lips move, "I remembered everything."

Ji Yunhe's voice was blocked by his barrier, but he understood her words. It stirred up a shockwave deep inside him. His blue eyes lit up and glowed. And Ji Yunhe's body floated down onto the seabed. Seeing she had drifted away from himself, he immediately reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

Ji Yunhe held on to his hand and pulled his body onto hers as she landed on top of the bed. They looked into each other's eyes under the shimmering light, through the magic barrier.

"Big-tailed fish... I'm sorry for everything you had to go through..."

He read her silent lips. Changyi did not expect such simple words would disturb the thousands of wounds that had festered and healed over inside him. It was always so easy for her to drill into the deepest vulnerabilities of his heart.

But why Ji Yunhe? He never understood it. Why her? Her life and death, illness and suffering, support and betrayal, remembering and forgetting...

They all made him feel so much pain. Even her silent words made him feel weak right now. Ji Yunhe gently caressed his face, then her hand reached behind his neck and she embraced him. This human world had been truly unkind to this big-tailed fish from the sea...

...

In the capital also late at night. The battle had left the city in ruins. A spring rain lightly fell in the middle of the night, making everything worse. No one cared about the civilians' woes and suffering. The Grand Master's house had been nearly demolished to the ground. He walked to his mostly collapsed study and waved his arm.

A book quietly flew into his hand from the rubble. The book was partially soaked by the rain, and he gently dabbed at the water with his white sleeve. Then he coughed violently.\n\n His body hunched over in the rain, something rarely seen. A red umbrella suddenly opened up above him.

He turned his head and saw Shunde dressed in red with her face behind a scarf. Her bare feet stepped in the mud as she eyed him. "Master, you are injured."

The Grand Master nodded, "Mhm."

"My fault for not helping you battle the jade phoenix."