Chapter 25

The scattered crowd came to a halt, and the retreating cultivators turned back, shouting, "The Zhaoshui Sword! It’s the Zhaoshui Sword!"

Yun Zhou was thrown back by the pressure of the Zhaoshui Sword. His robes were shredded by the violent surge of spiritual energy, and a deep, bloody gash was carved into his cheek by the sword's lingering radiance. Blood mingled with dust; he had never been in such a wretched state. Yet, he struggled to crawl up, pressing forward against the crushing pressure of the sword, desperate to reach Yun Yao.

Cultivators from the City Lord’s mansion swarmed around him, assuming he had been wounded by the demonic cultivator. Several cultivators at the Great Completion stage grabbed him, shouting, "Fellow Daoist Yun Zhou, your senior brother has fallen into the demonic path!"

Yun Zhou could not break free.

Yun Yao was pinned firmly to the ground by the light of the Zhaoshui Sword. He seemed to be in great pain, his brow tightly furrowed. Yet, when he turned his head and saw Yun Zhou, he actually began to smile.

I do not know how much time passed before someone from Luoyue Peak arrived. A demonic cultivator at the Tribulation stage had appeared in Zhaoshui City; Luoyue Peak could not simply sit by and watch. The one leading them was Xuan Fang.

With a grim expression, Xuan Fang deftly withdrew the Zhaoshui sword light covering Yun Yao, and chains etched with suppression runes crawled over Yun Yao’s limbs. "Take him to the Canggu Tower," Xuan Fang commanded.

From beginning to end, Yun Yao did not utter a word.

Yun Zhou was held back by several Great Completion cultivators. He reached out, but no matter what he did, he could not reach Yun Yao as the Luoyue Peak disciples dragged him away.

"...Senior brother."

Yun Zhou was clearly opening his mouth, yet he seemed so exhausted that he could not produce a sound.

But An Wuxue heard that "senior brother." It was not Yun Zhou who said it. It was the person beside him.

He turned his head and found that Xie Zhefeng was not watching the scene in Yun Yao’s memories; he was still gazing in the direction of the Zhaoshui Sword. The Zhaoshui Sword in Yun Yao’s memory was not clear, blurred like a reflection in water, yet Xie Zhefeng stared at it with dim eyes.

That "senior brother" just now, and the way he was looking at the Zhaoshui Sword... Was he thinking of me again?

A deathly silence filled An Wuxue’s heart. Longing—what meaning could that word possibly hold for an "An Wuxue" who had already died a thousand years ago? And this longing came from Xie Zhefeng, no less.

In his previous life, he had never received a single response from Xie Zhefeng. Everything he had striven for in his life had culminated only in the sight of his junior brother’s back fading into the wind and snow just before he died.

And after death? His junior brother had chased after his remnant soul to the Thistle River to weep, spent hundreds of years searching for news related to him, taken care of Kun Kun, and even sought the source of those lowly, unsightly paper talismans he carried.

Until now, he had dismissed all of this as the "regret" of someone who, having stood in the cold heights for hundreds or thousands of years, looked back and deceived himself.

But he had just seen Su Xue’s face. Xie Zhefeng kept a furnace practitioner by his side who looked remarkably like him. He had seen enough of human love to understand that only a heart capable of love could make one care so deeply for another by extension.

How novel. Had his junior brother ever felt love for him?

He would rather he hadn't. He would rather that, upon waking, he had found that Xie Zhefeng had forgotten him, that the name of the First Seat of Luoyue Peak had been buried in the ambush a thousand years ago, and that he had no further connection to the past.

Within the memories of Yun Yao’s remnant soul, the scenery around Zhaoshui City began to blur. An Wuxue looked down as the haze spread to his feet and said abruptly, "Immortal Venerable."

Xie Zhefeng finally regained his focus. "...Hm?"

"You have mentioned 'senior brother' twice today."

The man beside him seemed to realize what he was about to bring up, his brow furrowing slightly.

An Wuxue said, his voice expressionless, "If I recall correctly, the former First Seat of Luoyue Peak—the only senior brother the Immortal Venerable had from the same sect—perished a thousand years ago. It was the Immortal Venerable himself who wielded the Chu Han Sword to execute justice for the sake of the sect."

"If I were that senior brother of yours..." He turned his head to look directly at Xie Zhefeng, his gaze devoid of sorrow or joy. "Perhaps I would have preferred that you simply considered me a sinner who lost his way and fell into the demonic path, while you continued to sit high upon your lotus throne, ruling the two realms, acting as the unshakeable peak in the hearts of the world. Do not look back, do not regret. Otherwise..."

Otherwise, it makes his death look like a joke.

I didn't regret it, so what are you regretting? And even if you do regret it, what then? Could I draw the Chunhua Sword and plunge it into the chest of the only immortal in this world?

He let out a low chuckle and looked away from the man beside him.

Xie Zhefeng was stunned for a moment. If it were anyone else standing here, they likely wouldn't have been able to finish those words. But Su Xue was so remarkably similar to An Wuxue in his previous life that Xie Zhefeng listened in a trance, the pain in his eyes deepening, and he even began to argue with a hint of urgency, "I am not—"

The surrounding blurred scenery of Zhaoshui City suddenly vanished, and a pitch-black darkness descended. Both of them froze.

Yun Yao’s remnant memory was not yet over. If Luoyue Peak brought a fallen cultivator back to the sect, there was only one place used to dispose of Tribulation-stage immortals who had succumbed to the demonic path...

An Wuxue’s entire body stiffened.

As expected. The darkness faded, and the surroundings remained dim, with walls covered in frost on all sides. Only a narrow window, barely a person's width, let in a faint glimmer of daylight. Layer upon layer of barriers descended, sealing off all the hustle and bustle of the mortal world. Only a deathly cold remained.

The top floor of the Canggu Tower. No birds land here; it is a place of nine deaths and one life.

They were within Yun Yao’s memory; theoretically, they should not be able to perceive anything from the past. But watching Yun Yao, who hung silently with his head bowed under the weight of heavy chains, he remembered the hundred days he had spent there himself.

To a cultivator, a hundred days is but the blink of an eye—but those hundred days he spent imprisoned in the Canggu Tower felt longer than a century, draining him until he felt as though his very flesh had dissolved into the frost of the tower. He seemed to feel that cold from years ago once more, standing there stiffly as he watched.

Xie Zhefeng had been watching An Wuxue the whole time and immediately sensed something was wrong. He frowned. "What is wrong with you?"

An Wuxue did not respond.

Xie Zhefeng said, "Hold onto the Soul-Nurturing Tree essence; do not delay the important task." Assuming that his wound was hurting, he reached out to touch his injured left shoulder, his fingertips glowing with spiritual energy, ready to cover it.

The moment the icy spiritual energy surged, An Wuxue shivered violently from the chill and hurriedly stepped back several paces.

"You..."

"I am cold," he said.

Xie Zhefeng was taken aback.

Ahead, Yun Yao’s soul was growing weaker and weaker. Even disciples of Luoyue Peak who had committed grave crimes might not make it out of here alive, let alone a demonic cultivator harboring turbid energy. His Tribulation-stage cultivation had been forcibly ripped upward the moment he absorbed that turbid energy. He could not last much longer.

Yun Yao hung motionless beneath the chains surrounded by runes, his head bowed, his breath as thin as a silk thread.

*Tap.*

*Tap, tap.*

Long boots stepped across the frost that never melted throughout the year. A man in white robes walked slowly toward Yun Yao.

Xie Zhefeng? Why did Xie Zhefeng suddenly go over—

An Wuxue turned, only to find that Xie Zhefeng was still standing beside him, showing no surprise at the appearance of the other "Xie Zhefeng." He looked back and saw another Xie Zhefeng standing before Yun Yao.

—That was the Xie Zhefeng of two hundred years ago!

Two hundred years ago... what was the Chu Han Immortal Venerable doing in the Canggu Tower?

The Xie Zhefeng of that time stood still before Yun Yao. He asked in a low voice, "Are you cold?"

It was abrupt and out of context. In a daze, Yun Yao nodded.

"...How cold?"

Xie Zhefeng stood by the narrow window, watching the daylight outside the barrier.

Yun Yao kept his head down and let out a soft, gentle laugh. "Since you are standing there... why ask me if I am cold?"

"I..." Xie Zhefeng murmured, "I can no longer feel it."

The Eternal Immortal was no longer bound by the mundane constraints of the world and could no longer experience the icy cold of the Canggu Tower.

Yun Yao said nothing more. Xie Zhefeng stood by the narrow window for a while, then left. One had been looking elsewhere, the other had kept his head bowed with fading breath; neither had seen the other's face.

Not long after, Yun Yao could no longer hold on. Born in Zhaoshui City and raised in the Cloud Sword Sect, he had always been the oldest and most composed of his peers, yet he ultimately ended his life on the top floor of the Canggu Tower, covered in frost and turbid energy.

He died.

Another darkness washed over them. I do not know how much time passed. The perspective of Yun Yao’s memory suddenly brightened again.

—It was Yun Zhou.

Yun Zhou had actually fashioned a puppet body identical to Yun Yao’s in life and had found a remnant strand of Yun Yao’s soul, placing it within the puppet.

For a demonic cultivator who died in the Canggu Tower, both body and soul would gradually disintegrate. Yun Zhou could only find that final, faint thread of a soul. The soul remained in the puppet body, day after day, year after year, without a single movement.

Yun Yao’s remnant soul could vaguely sense everything around him, but he only possessed his final obsession; he was muddled and confused, unable to move or speak.

"Senior brother, I know I was wrong. I won't bully you anymore. Can you smile at me again? You look very beautiful when you smile."

"...I didn't return to the Cloud Sword Sect, and I didn't take the Mirror Demon to Luoyue Peak. I have been looking for you. If you wake up, whatever you tell me to do, I will do it, okay?"

"The tides of the East Cang Sea are so high today—you used to take advantage of the high tides to bring me to the Cang Sea, saying that I only focused on cultivation and sword techniques, ignoring footwork, and that I would suffer for it one day. You told me to study footwork in the tides, and I always brushed you off. I won't brush you off today. Will you teach me?"

"I’ve flipped through so many ancient texts and asked so many people. They all say that when a person dies, it is like a lamp going out, and a remnant soul is not the same as life. I don't believe it..."

"..."

Yun Zhou came to see Yun Yao every few days, and every time he came, he brought a pile of rare treasures related to the soul. But none of it was of any use.

After talking to himself for so long, he gradually began to feel it was meaningless. He started controlling the puppet’s body, mimicking his senior brother’s temperament, and talking to himself.

"...Senior brother, please, say something to me again. I beg you, consider it my plea..."

"I don't want anything else..."

Several more springs and autumns passed.

This time, Yun Zhou walked with hurried steps, his expression full of anticipation. He said to Yun Yao, "Senior brother, I found it! Luoyue Peak has a heavenly treasure called the Soul-Nurturing Tree. The Immortal Venerable spent great effort to find it. The tree contains the Soul-Nurturing Tree essence, which can peer into souls and nourish them."

"As long as I can obtain this treasure, your remnant soul can be restored to how it was."

In the memory, the scene shifted.

Yun Yao’s puppet body waited in Zhaoshui City for a while, only to see Yun Zhou return, accompanied by someone else.