Chapter 67: This Venerable One's Heartfelt Anguish

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ChengHuang Temple stood at the very edge of the extent of Chu Xun's powers; the barrier reached to the stairs of the temple, but no further.

Inside the temple, candles flickered weakly.

A dozen ghosts that had cultivated corporeal forms lined either side, and in between them, tied up with her back to them, was a woman in red, her head tilted back as she gazed up at the statue on the altar.

And next to her with his eyes downcast stood Xiao Man, holding firmly onto a young child.

Chu Xun cried out: "Lan-er!" The child was none other than Chu Xun's son, Chu Lan. Mo Ran's heart lurched at the sight of the little guy in trouble; he could still taste the pastry on his tongue. He made to go over, but was blocked by Chu Wanning.

"Don't go." "Why not!" Chu Wanning glanced at him, then said, quietly: "They've all died already,

two hundred years ago. The illusion has been actualized, I don't want you to get hurt." "..." It was the truth—no matter what he did now, the dead have already gone, there was no way to change any of it.

The little guy wailed from outside the barrier, nearly unintelligible: "Papa!

Papa help me! Papa please help Lan-er!"   Chu Xun's lips trembled. He yelled toward Xiao Man: "What are you doing?

I've never done you wrong, let him go!"   Xiao Man ignored him, head still lowered as if he had heard none of it. But the hands clutching Chu Lan betrayed his inner hesitation—there was a mole between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and his hands trembled without stop, the veins on the backs of them standing out starkly.

By now, everyone else taking refuge at the governor's residence had arrived as well, all of them aghast and furious at the sight within the temple, murmuring:

"That's the gongzi's son..." "How could this happen..." Xiao Man cut the ropes binding the red-robed woman in one motion. She seemed to come back to her senses and turned slowly around—she was beautiful, pure as a lotus flower, her neck long and elegant, but her face was paper-pale and her lips were tinted red like blood, and the smile she directed toward Chu Xun was more terrifying than it was lovely.

The low light of the candles lit up her face. The moment they saw, Chu Xun and those behind him old enough to know all froze.

There was sadness in her smile. Softly, she said: "Husband." Mo Ran: "!!!!" Chu Wanning: "..." The woman was none other than Chu Xun's deceased wife!

Madam Chu looked to her side and immediately reached over to take her son back from Xiao Man. Xiao Man was unwilling, but Madam Chu was a ghost now, much stronger than he was now that she had been freed from the bindings,

and easily pulled the child out of his grasp. But she had died of illness before her child was even a month old, so the little guy had never seen his mother and only kept crying for his father to save him.

"Be a good boy and don't cry anymore, mama will take you to your papa." Madam Chu picked the child up in her delicate arms and slowly walked out of the temple, down the rain-soaked stone steps, to the edge of the Shangqing barrier. She stood facing Chu Xun, joy mixed with sorrow.

"My husband, it's been a long time. Have…...have you been well?"   Chu Xun couldn't speak. The tips of his fingers shook uncontrollably at his sides as those phoenix eyes stared at the woman behind the barrier, rims slowly turning red.

Madam Chu continued softly: "Lan-er has gotten so big already, and you've grown steadier too, a little different from what I remember... let me take a good look at you." She reached out, her hand pressed against the barrier—she couldn't cross,

not with her body being that of a ghost, could only gaze quietly across the flowing colors of the barrier at the person on the other side.

Chu Xun closed his eyes, wetness clinging to his lashes.

He pressed his hand to hers, separated by the barrier, then opened his eyes.

The two of them gazed at each other, across life and death, as the day before.

Chu Xun choked back a sob: "Wife..." The family had been separated by life and death for many years, but the amount of time they got to spend together could be counted on one hand.

"The haitang tree I planted in the courtyard that year, did it take root?"   Chu Xun smiled with watery eyes: "It's already grown tall and beautiful." Madam Chu, smiling gently: "I'm glad." Chu Xun tried his best to keep smiling as well: "Lan-er loves that haitang tree, he's always playing under it in the springs. He likes haitang flowers, just like you, every…...every year, during QingMing[5]..." Unable to keep up the act any longer, he pressed his forehead against the barrier, tears falling without cease, voice breaking, "Every year, during QingMing, he would always pick the prettiest flower to put before your grave. Wan'er, Wan'er, did you see?

Every…...every year, did you see?" He was wracked with sobs by the end, every word bleeding misery, until his composure finally fell apart altogether.

Madam Chu's eyes also grew red; she was a ghost and had no tears to shed, but her miserable expression was no less unsettling to the onlookers.

For a moment all were silent, everyone wordlessly watching the scene before them, and someone was weeping quietly.

But just then, a cold voice rang out from above.

"Of course she knows. But not for long."   Mo Ran's face changed immediately: "It's the Ghost King!"   Chu Wanning's expression was dark as well: "This coward won't even show himself, shameless!" The Ghost King's laugh sounded like nails against metal, making their blood run cold.

"Lin Wan'er is one of us ghosts now. I didn't want to hurt her, but since you're so set on opposing me and even ruined one of my eyes, I'll just have to dig out your heart, inflict a worse pain on you!" At his words, the ghosts in the temple began chanting incantations.

"The heart is no more, let the past be erased——" Madam Chu's eyes shot wide open and her voice shook: "Husband, Lan-er,

take Lan-er!!!!" "The heart is no more, let relations be severed——"   "Lan-er! Quickly! Go to your papa!!" Madam Chu tried to push her child across the barrier, but the thin layer of light kept him out as if he was a ghost.

Xiao Man looked down at them from where he stood by the railing of the temple; his face, originally charming, twisted with a mixture of sorrow and glee.

"It's useless. I put a ghost mark on him as instructed by the Ghost King. He's just like a ghost now, the barrier won't let him in."   Behind them, the incantation rose like a tide: "The heart is no more, let reason be shattered——" "Husband!!" Madam Chu was already panicked beyond measure, clutching her child to herself and banging against the barrier, "Husband, take the barrier down, take it down, let Lan-er in, you have to protect him, you have to protect him——I——I'm almost…...I..."   "The heart is no more, let compassion be smothered——"   "HUSBAND——!!!!!!" Madam Chu fell to her knees, her eyes wide as her whole body shook uncontrollably, curse marks in the color of blood climbing slowly up her face,

"Our child——Lan-er…...you promised me, you promised me you'd take care of him…...take it down... please, I'm begging you... take it down...

husband!!!!"   Chu Xun felt as if his insides were being ripped apart. Several times his hand lifted to dispel the barrier, only to fall back down in the end.

Outside the barrier, Chu Lan was bawling loudly, looking up at him with a tear-stained face, his little hands reaching for him: "Papa doesn't…...want Lan-er anymore...? Lan-er wants Papa... Papa hold me..." Madam Chu held him tightly in her arms, kissing his cheek. The pair of mother and son, one kneeling, one crying, both begging Chu Xun to take down the Shangqing barrier and let the child in.

Suddenly, someone in the crowd yelled: "Gongzi, you can't! You can't drop the barrier, that would doom all the hundreds of people left in Lin'an——that's the ghosts' ploy! Gongzi! You can't drop the barrier!" "That's right, the barrier must be kept up!" The desire to live made the common people kneel one after another and grovel toward Chu Xun, pleading,

"Gongzi, please, you can't take down the barrier, or everyone will die!" "Madam, please..." One of them got down and bowed toward Madam Chu,

"Madam, please have mercy, please be benevolent, we will be grateful to you forever, please don't make gongzi take down the barrier, you were always so compassionate, please, we're begging you..."

In an instant, other than the guards and a handful of the common people,

everyone else was on their knees begging and crying, their voices drowning out those of Madam Chu and her son on the outside of the barrier.

Chu Xun felt like he was standing on the point of a needle and being stabbed by a thousand thousand sharp knives, each blade growing barbs inside his flesh and tearing through his organs.

Before him were his wife and son, behind him were the lives of hundreds.

Tormented so, he felt as if he had already died, as if he had been swallowed by blazes and burnt to ashes.

But the chanting continued on, even more piercing than before.

"The heart is no more, let emotion be expunged——" "The heart is no more, let desire be dissipated——"   More and more curse marks climbed up Madam Chu's fair neck, nearly covering her entire face, and beginning to bleed into her eyes.

She could hardly even speak anymore, only staring at her husband in despair as she strained to utter:

"If you... I... will... hate you... take... take Lan-er... I hate...

I..." The curse marks oozed into her pupils. Her entire body shuddered, as if in agony, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

"I——HATE!!!!!!"   A wretched scream tore through the air, but the end of it turned into a beastlike cry!

Madam Chu's eyes flew open. Her gentle, almond-shaped eyes were stained the color of blood, and the whites of her eyes were all gone, for there were now four pupils in each eye.

"Wan'er!!!" Chu Xun cried out with boundless sorrow, forgetting for a moment that the Shangqing barrier required its caster to remain inside, wanting only to be with his wife. But just as he was about to step out of the barrier, an arrow pierced through the sky and firmly into his shoulder, and the arm he was raising dropped back down to his side.

It was a young man of the guard, still posed with bow in hand.

He said to Chu Xun, self-righteously: "Gongzi! Wake up! You've always taught us that the righteous put the people before the self, were those just pretty words? Will you toss away the lives of hundreds to save one person just as soon as it concerned yourself?!"   An old woman next to the young man said shakily: "P-put that bow down,

how could you hurt the gongzi? Everything, everything is gongzi's choice, gongzi has already done his utmost, how, how could you... how could you be so ungrateful!!"   As they argued, cries of fear suddenly broke out in front.

Madam Chu had completely turned. She had held her child with such love only a moment ago, but she was no different from a beast now, howling toward the sky with saliva dripping from her mouth, her teeth growing longer by the second.

And in her arms, Chu Lan's voice had gone hoarse from crying, but in between sobs he still called out: "Mama..."

What answered him were Madam Chu's blood-red claws, piercing straight through his throat!!!!!

All sound disappeared from the world.

Droplets of blood drifted through the air like so many blossoms.

Just like that year, when Madam Chu had stood by the window holding her newborn child, watching the petals of newly bloomed haitang flowers dancing in the courtyard.

She had cradled the child gently in her arms, singing softly: "Red haitang,

yellow haitang, floating gently in the wind. Children in a land far away, missing their mom and dad."   Red haitang... yellow haitang...

The hand that had caressed Chu Lan so tenderly that year tore into his skull,

his limbs, his flesh.

Floating gently in the wind.

The rain came down in a deluge, blood pooling and flowing along the ground. The mother devoured her child's entrails.

Children in a land far away.

The eaves of ChengHuang Temple towered solemnly above them.

The year Chu Lan was born, she had knelt before ChengHuang Temple and clasped her delicate, warm hands together in prayer. The chime of a clock had sent all the birds nearby scattering, and in the haze of the fragrant candles, she bowed down low to pray for her child's health and happiness, that he might live a long life free from worries…...

Missing their mom and dad.

Chu Lan's heart was dug out from his mangled body. Madam Chu sunk her teeth into it, insatiable, blood dripping from the corners of her mouth.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!" Chu Xun broke down, clutching his head where he had fallen to his knees, bashing his head repeatedly against the ground. He wept, wretched and miserable, kneeling in the rain in the blood in front of his wife and son in front of all the people of Lin'an, he knelt before the image of god, he knelt in the mud underfoot.

He knelt in the depths of sin, he knelt in the heights of virtue.

He knelt in untold gratitude, he knelt in utmost hatred.

He hunched over in the dust, his very soul torn apart and extinguished.

Disintegrated into dust.

A long while passed before someone finally spoke up in a trembling voice.

"Gongzi..."   "Gongzi, condolences..." "Gongzi's benevolence will not be forgotten..."   "Chu-gongzi is righteous, truly a kind person! Truly a kind person..."   Someone had pulled their own child close and covered his eyes so that he wouldn't see the bloody scene, only just now letting go to say to Chu Xun:

"Gongzi, you saved all of our lives. The madam and the little gongzi, they'll...

they'll surely ascend to paradise..."

Someone else spit out: "Take your child and get lost! Why didn't you and your child go to paradise instead?!" That person backed away timidly.

But all of it sounded so far away. Chu Xun felt like he had already died. The voices sounded as if they came from across an ocean, from across a life.

In the torrential downpour, the man was covered in mud, that thin layer of transparent light separating him from his wife and son, the dead on one side, the dying on the other. Looking at the scene before him, Mo Ran thought suddenly of his past life, when he had wantonly slaughtered the innocent, and wondered if he had created more than one Chu Xun, more than one Chu Lan, more than one Madam Chu...

He looked down at his hands.

For a split second, his hands looked as if they were covered in blood.

But then he blinked, and it was only the ice-cold rain gathering in his palms and flowing down his hands.

He trembled.

But in the next moment, a warm hand took his.

He snapped out of it like waking from a nightmare to find his little shidi looking at him with concern. He looked so much like Chu Lan.

Mo Ran slowly knelt down to be eye level with him, like a sinner begging forgiveness from the souls of the dead, looking at him with eyes watery with rain and tears both.

Chu Wanning said nothing, only reached up and pat him on the head.

"It's already happened." Chu Wanning said softly, "It's all in the past already." "You're right." A while passed before Mo Ran wrangled out a sad smile.

Lowering his lashes, he muttered, "It's all in the past already." But even if it was all in the past already, it was all still things he had done. He hadn't killed Chu Lan, but how many people just like Chu Lan had died because of him?

The more he thought about it, the more scared he was, the more it hurt.

Why had he been so cruel... why had he been so willfull…...

[5] 清明 QingMing "Pure Brightness Festival" aka tomb sweeping day, celebration for the dead in early April