Chapter 100: Shizun's Last Words

Mo Ran's blood ran cold.

He had only ever seen Chu Wanning's guqin Jiu'ge once in his life, when he'd summoned it at their life or death battle before, its chords splitting the skies and sundering the clouds.

All that had been under the control of Zhenlong Chess Formation at the time,

from the living people to the beasts and spirits, recovered their consciousness under the effect of Jiu'ge's chords, Mo Ran's million-strong army of chess pieces thrown into utter disarray by one song.

But summoning a holy weapon required use of the spiritual core and consumed a large amount of spiritual energy.

Chu Wanning couldn't even call Tianwen anymore, so how did he suddenly manage to call forth Jiu'ge, which was even stronger than Tianwen?

The battle above the Heavenly Lake that day had been no less fierce than the deathmatch between master and disciple back then.

But Mo Ran's memory of it was a blur, because, after that bloody battle,

there was finally no one left by his side he could talk to.

Truth be told, in the last lifetime, all the way until death, Mo Ran never could figure out just how Chu Wanning was able to summon Jiu'ge using just the strength of his soul.

It was a kind of connection that didn't exist between any holy weapon and its master. But Chu Wanning managed it.

That day, in the sound of the guqin, Mo Ran's Zhenlong chess pieces shattered into dust one after another. Jiu'ge's strength was even more pure and indomitable than the first time he saw it many years ago, so much so that he had even suspected that Chu Wanning's spiritual core hadn't been shattered at all,

that he had merely been faking it all those years, enduring the indignities and biding his time, waiting for the chance to take revenge in one fell sweep.

Later, he even couldn't help thinking, it'd be great if that really was the case.

If Chu Wanning really was just pretending, then maybe things wouldn't have gone that far.

If only.

Jiu'ge nullified Mo Ran's forbidden magic, returning awareness to the cultivators that had been slaughtering one another, and even shattered the enchanted ice pillars that had been keeping Xue Meng and Mei Hanxue bound.

Mo Ran leapt high into the sky, robes whipping in the wind and eyes filled with both anger and delight. He couldn't wait to see just how many more surprising skills Chu Wanning had up his sleeves.

He landed on top of the barrier and strode over to stand before Chu Wanning.

That pair of pale, slender hands slowed and laid over the strings of the guqin, halting its sound.

Chu Wanning lifted his head, his face pale like snow beneath the sun.

He spoke, "Mo Ran. Come closer."     Not knowing why, he walked over.

Chu Wanning moved his fingers and several streams of jade colored light flew toward Mo Ran's chest. He was startled for a moment, thinking that Chu Wanning meant to kill him.

But the light didn't hurt at all, only hovering in front of his chest before diffusing slowly into his skin and flesh, bringing with it untold warmth.

"I've healed your wound from Xue Meng," Chu Wanning let out a soft sigh.

"So just let him off, Mo Ran. If even he's gone, who will you go to in the future when you want to reminisce about the past…"     Mo Ran didn't even have time to process the meaning behind his words when the sturdy barrier beneath his feet disappeared abruptly, along with Chu Wanning's summoned guqin, Jiu'ge.

He immediately raised his hand to call forth his blade Bu'gui to maintain his footing between the clouds, but Chu Wanning fell, gentle like a wilted leaf, as if the song just now had exhausted all that remained of his strength.

"WANNING!" His expression changed immediately as he urged his blade downwards,

catching that person in his arms just before he would have fallen into the ice-cold waters of the Heavenly Lake.

"Chu Wanning! You——you…" Chu Wanning's eyes were closed. Blood seeped from his nose, his mouth,

his eyes, his ears.

He had always valued his dignity, keeping his back ramrod straight even when he was imprisoned at Wushan Palace and rarely ever allowing his appearance to be anything less than prim and pristine. But now he bled from all seven orifices of the face, that usually clear and refined countenance a disheveled mess.

Chu Wanning swallowed a mouthful of blood and said in a hoarse voice,

"You said… that life or death is not up to me… but you see, Mo Ran… you've underestimated your Shizun after all… if I've made up my mind to leave, you can't stop me… even if you tried…" "...Shizun...Shizun…" Mo Ran stared at him, feeling a chill wash over his heart, feeling his scalp go numb as he called out helplessly.

Chu Wanning smiled, his expression seeming almost glad. "I've kept living these past few years because I didn't want to give up, always thinking… thinking that I'll just keep you company for a few more years, try to teach you… not to commit any more sins… but now… now…" Mo Ran trembled as he held the person in his arms. He suddenly felt terrified.

Terrified.

Such an emotion hadn't been part of him for more than ten years, but now it rushed back in a wave, nearly carving out his heart.

"Now I know that, perhaps, it takes my death for you to… stop doing evil…" He stopped talking, as if in immense pain. Forcibly summoning Jiu'ge was more than his body could handle, and his insides were ripping apart, another mouthful of blood spilling forth. Mo Ran, holding him in his arms, landed by the Heavenly Lake, his expression crazed with an undertone of anguish as he channeled spiritual energy into his chest nonstop.

But that powerful stream of spiritual energy only sunk uselessly into Chu Wanning's body like a clay ox into the sea.

Mo Ran panicked. Taxian-Jun clutched the person in his arms tightly to himself, trying and failing, again and again, to give him spiritual energy.

"It's useless...Mo Ran, I used the last of my life to summon Jiu'ge, this is it for me. But if you… still have any clarity in your heart… then please… forgive…"

Forgive whom?

Xue Meng, Mei Hanxue?

Kunlun Taxue Palace, or the entire cultivation world?

Yes, yes… he'd forgive them all! As long as Chu Wanning lived, as long as this person he hated to the core didn't die like this.

Chu Wanning lifted a trembling hand, and a cold fingertip—as if in pity, but also almost tenderly—poked lightly at his forehead.

He said, "Then please…forgive...forgive yourself…"   The ferocity on Mo Ran's face froze in that instant.

Forgive whom…

As he lay dying, just whom was he worrying over?

Forgive...yourself…

Was that what he said?

Holding him in his arms, Taxian-Jun seemed somewhat at a loss, but also somewhat delighted; anguished, but also perfectly contented.

"Forgive myself? Your last wish is for me to forgive myself?" Mo Ran muttered, eyes bloodshot, then he suddenly burst into laughter,

laughter that sounded like a raging inferno piercing through the skies and burning away all reason and rationality.

"HAHAHA——HAHAHAHAHA——FORGIVE MYSELF? CHU WANNING,

YOU'RE EVEN CRAZIER THAN ME! HOW NAIVE——HAHAHAHAHA——" All of Kunlun Mountain echoed with his deranged, miserable laughter, his twisted, unrecognizable, terrifying laughter.

Surrounded by the sound of Mo Ran's crazed laughter, Chu Wanning swallowed another mouthful of blood. If he still had the strength, his expression would've been one of anguish, but he didn't even have the strength to furrow his brows anymore, only that pair of phoenix eyes… those eyes that had once been sharp, or resolute, or harsh, or gentle, those eyes were now filled with sorrow.

Clear as the snow over the Heavenly Lake, hazy as the frost over the roof tiles.

Slowly, Chu Wanning's eyes grew unfocused, his pupils dilating. Slowly, what had once been bright and sharp as lightning could no longer see clearly.

In the end, he said in a quiet voice, "Don't laugh anymore, I can't bear to see you like this…" "..."   "Mo Ran, this whole life, no matter what happened in the end… it's all because I failed to teach you well, because I called you deficient by nature and beyond remedy… It was I who wronged you; I won't blame you, in life or in death…" There was no color left on Chu Wanning's bloodless face, even his lips were a pale blue. Arduously, he lifted his gaze to look at Mo Ran's face; he wanted to cry, but it was blood that flowed slowly from his eyes and trickled down his face.

Chu Wanning wept. He said, "Do you… truly hate me so much… that you will not grant me so much as a moment of peace… even at the very end…" "Mo Ran...Mo Ran… don't do this anymore, wake up, turn back… turn back…" Wake up…

He told him to wake up, but he himself, with his hollow eyes open, went to sleep.

Mo Ran didn't believe, he refused to believe, that Chu Wanning had died just like this.

That the great zongshi of an era, high and lofty, his Shizun, the person he hated the most, had died just like this.

Lying in his arms at the edge of a Heavenly Lake dyed red by blood.

Growing cold, bit by bit, cold as frost, frozen like ice.

Chu Wanning's face was covered in blood. Mo Ran stared for a bit with his head lowered, then raised his sleeve and tried to wipe it clean.

But there was too much blood. The more he wiped, the more he dirtied that originally clear and clean face. Mo Ran pressed his lips together and wiped harder.

All he got was a face smeared with blood.

Even the facial features were hard to see now.

He finally stopped laughing.

Closing his eyes, he murmured quietly, "You won this time, Chu Wanning. I couldn't stop you from dying." He paused, then opened his eyes back up. They were deep and dark, yet a fire burned within the abyss.

He continued, "But you've underestimated me as well. I can't stop you if you don't want to live, but you also can't stop me if I don't want you to die."   Without publicizing his death, Mo Ran brought Chu Wanning back to Sisheng Peak.

He was already immensely powerful by then, well capable of keeping a dead body from decay for all of time——so he kept Chu Wanning's body at the Red Lotus Pavilion, forced him to "live on" like this.

It was too difficult for him to acknowledge that he had killed the last person in the world who still worried for him.

As long as he could keep Chu Wanning's body from turning into ash; as long as he could still look at him every day.

He could still think that Chu Wanning wasn't dead.

And there would still be somewhere for him to unload his deranged hatred,

somewhere for him to entrust his twisted love.

Taxian-Jun had finally gone completely insane.

After Chu Wanning left, he would go to the Red Lotus Pavilion every single day to look at his corpse. At first, eyes flashing with malice, he would spit and curse before that body, saying, "Chu Wanning, it's what you deserve." "You cared for every single person beneath the sun but me, you hypocrite." "What kind of master even are you? I must've been fucking blind back then to take you as my master! You bastard!"   And then, later, he would ask, relentlessly, every single day, "What're you doing still asleep? When are you gonna wake up?" "I've already let Xue Meng go, isn't that enough for you? Get up already." Every time he said such things, the servants by his side wondered if he had lost it and gone mad.

His wife, Song Qiutong, also thought he had gone mad. The prospect frightened her, and so, lying beside him after a rare night of intimacy, she took the chance to say, "A-Ran, the dead won't come back. I know you're sad, but…" "Who's sad?" "..." Song Qiutong was adept at reading faces, especially after these years spent at Mo Ran's side, every step careful like treading on thin ice. Seeing his illtempered expression, she immediately shut up and lowered her eyes, saying,

"This one misspoke."

"No no," but Mo Ran didn't let her off so easily this time, narrowing his eyes as he pressed, "since you've already spit it out, don't just swallow it again. Go on, tell me, who's sad?" "Your Majesty…"   There was thunder in Mo Ran's dark eyes. He sat up abruptly and seized Song Qiutong by her delicate neck, lifting the woman he had just entwined with in one hand and throwing her off the bed.

His face twisted into something dangerous and beast-like.

"What do you mean the dead won't come back, who's dead? Who's not coming back?" Mo Ran pushed each word past gritted teeth, aggressively and forcefully. "No one's dead, no one needs to come back, and no one's sad!"   Song Qiutong's lips quivered; she wanted to struggle, but as soon as she uttered the words "Red Lotus Pavilion…" just that half of a sentence, and Mo Ran was already seeing red.

"What are you trying to say, there's no one but a sleeping Chu Wanning at the Red Lotus Pavilion! What exactly are you trying to suggest! Bitch!" Seeing him fly into an uncontrollable rage, Song Qiutong's heart lurched,

unsure what outrageous insanity he might do at this rate, and so she threw caution to the winds and gambled it all, raising her voice to say, "Your Majesty,

that person lying in the Red Lotus Pavilion is already dead, yet you wallow there every day, how can this one… how can this one not worry?" She picked her words carefully to avoid blame, even framing her own selfish desire as concern for Mo Ran.

Mo Ran stared at her, his breathing gradually calming down as if the words had gotten through to him somewhat. He stopped raging at her.

He took a moment to steady himself before saying, "I've made you worry." Song Qiutong let out a breath of relief. "This one wishes only for Your Majesty's well-being, and would gladly die for it. Your Majesty is deeply compassionate, but you must not be so despondent." "Then how do you think this Venerable One should be?"   "Forgive this one for saying so, this one only means well for Your Majesty,

but it's time to bury Chu… Chu-zongshi… he's already gone, keeping his empty body around like this will only cause Your Majesty more pain."   "And? You have more to say, don't you? Might as well let it all out today."   Seeing his expression gradually relax, the heart in Song Qiutong's throat settled back down in her chest.

She lowered her eyelashes and tilted her head slightly with her eyes halflidded; she knew that she looked most like Shi Mingjing this way.

She was well aware that Shi Mingjing was Mo Weiyu's weakness, though she couldn't understand why it was that, no matter how much she dressed up like him and carefully imitated his demeanor, she just couldn't arouse Mo Ran's interest.

Although this temperamental man liked her company, he only ever touched her when he was either feeling very low or very drunk. Song Qiutong thought that maybe it was because Mo Ran didn't really like women, but whatever it was, it clearly had nothing to do with Shi Mingjing.

Not just her, but all of Sisheng Peak knew that the man who died many years ago was Emperor Taxian-Jun's true love.

What the hell was Chu Wanning.

Song Qiutong felt that he was no more than a plaything used by Taxian-Jun to vent his lust, a man he had already grown tired of fucking. Chu Wanning may have traded his life for Mo Weiyu's disquietude and remembrance, but she knew it was nothing more than a momentary guilt, a temporary feeling of being unaccustomed.

She was confident in her face, this face that looked like Shi Mingjing; that living dead in the Red Lotus Pavilion was no match for her on this basis alone.

But Mo Ran can't be allowed to continue on in his madness like this. The world these days was in chaos, wars left and right, and she was terrified that she might have chosen to follow the wrong master—she wasn't young anymore; if Mo Ran was to lose his standing, she probably wouldn't be able to find another sky-reaching tree on which to climb to the top. And so she sincerely,

wholeheartedly hoped that Mo Ran would pull himself together and stop being insane.

So she mulled it over, weighing the risks against the rewards, and in the end summoned up the courage to say, "And once Chu-zongshi is gone, there will be none worthy of the Red Lotus Pavilion." Mo Ran said, "Right. Go on." "This one thinks, with that being the case, the pavilion will only remind Your Majesty of the past, so…" "So?" Mo Ran narrowed his eyes.

"So perhaps it'd be best to seal away the Red Lotus Pavilion after this. A pavilion serving only one master is a good tale."    

Author's Notes:

Miss Song is working towards her great demise.

Miss Song's graduation thesis "An essay on how tragically one can die if they lack the ability to grasp the heart of the situation" Big white cat's talking corpse: [thanking jjwxc readers] Depraved Taxian-Jun of the previous lifetime: Me? You dare to make this venerable one read out the thanks? Sure, see if anyone thanks you tomorrow,

hmph.