Chapter 33

The disciples of Luoyue and the cultivators of Zhaoshui who followed behind stood at a distance, not daring to step an inch closer.

Qin Wei’s face twitched violently; his eyes instantly reddened, and his lips trembled, unable to utter a word. He dragged his feet forward and collapsed before the shattered child’s clothing, lifting that piece of spiritual fabric with trembling hands.

He suddenly stood up and rushed out, sword in hand.

An Wuxue grabbed him: "Qin Wei!!!"

Qin Wei tried to shake him off: "Ah Xue, let me go!"

He held Qin Wei back with all his might: "You have no idea if those demons are dead, nor do you know where they have fled to if they are alive. The great battle has just passed, the area beyond the barrier is filled with miasma, and who knows how many Tribulation-stage demons are lurking outside Zhaoshui City? What are you going there for? To throw your life away for nothing?"

Whether from anger or grief, the hand he used to pull Qin Wei was also trembling.

Lou Shuiming merely stumbled forward and embraced Song Wu from behind. He covered his junior sister’s eyes and whispered, "Do not look. Junior sister, Ah Wu, do not look..."

It was the first time An Wuxue saw such an expression on Lou Shuiming’s face.

The Lord of the City, who had never taken a single step back when fighting demons, who walked through long streets piled with white bones with his sword in hand, had always been able to maintain eyes like tranquil water and movements as elegant as a crane’s cry.

Yet, holding his junior sister, he bowed his head, not daring to look at what lay before them.

That night, every household in Zhaoshui City hung white cloth at their doors, and the City Lord’s manor was plunged into a deathly silence. Qin Wei drank until he was senseless, while An Wuxue practiced his swordsmanship in the courtyard all night long.

As the morning light broke, he took out a sound-transmission talisman, hesitating for a long while. There was an indescribable sense of oppression in his heart.

Yet, Lou Shuiming was grieving, Song Wu was grieving, Qin Wei was grieving, the cultivators of Zhaoshui who had lost their loved ones were grieving, and the displaced mortals were grieving, too. If everyone in this world stopped at grief, who would be left to curb the sorrow?

He had intended to briefly describe the day’s events in the transmission, and to speak of his own state of mind. But in the end, he left only a single sentence in the talisman.

He asked: "Is Junior Brother well?"

The "Heaven’s End, Sea’s Corner" talisman carried those four words away, floating toward Luoyue in the distant south.

Two days later, the talisman, carrying the spiritual aura of Xie Zhefeng’s soul, drifted before him. His junior brother replied: "I heard Zhaoshui was in danger yesterday."

Beyond his disappointment, An Wuxue felt a strange sense of relief. Why had he ever thought of confiding in his junior brother? Even if he had, the only response he would have received was this inquiry regarding the safety of Zhaoshui City.

He briefly recounted the affairs of the city in a few words, composed his thoughts, and returned to contemplating the state of the sword array.

A day later, they uncovered what had happened on the day of the siege. It turned out that the peers of the great demon Song Wu had slain years ago had sought revenge. They had created a diversion, pretending to send people to destroy the Zhaoshui Sword, while their true target was Lou Wushang.

Demons and immortals had fought for years, and no one would have paid attention to an eight-year-old child. But that battle had been a calculated scheme against the unsuspecting; they had wanted to use this to retaliate against Lou Shuiming and Song Wu.

The instigating demon was already dead. The vengeance seemed to have been exacted, but it was just that—a hollow act of revenge.

Afterward, Zhaoshui City rebuilt its barriers and buried the remains of the fallen in the Sword Tomb. Lou Wushang’s body and his clothes were also laid to rest in the tomb beneath the giant sword.

Lou Shuiming spent several days in seclusion before returning to being the gentle, meticulous, and respectful City Lord. He understood better than anyone that while he had lost Lou Wushang, among the thousands of cultivators and mortals in Zhaoshui City, who had not lost someone of their own?

He had traveled across the lands to seal demons and dispel miasma since the beginning of the immortal calamity, witnessing too much injustice and too much heartbreak in this world. He knew how to hold on, and he knew how to let go.

But Song Wu could not.

Song Wu remained behind closed doors for a long time. When An Wuxue saw her again, she spoke much less, and the bright, flamboyant spirit she had possessed when they first met was no longer visible. Her Dao heart seemed to have fractured, and her cultivation had stalled at the mid-stage of the Tribulation phase.

Her life had been too smooth; it was the first time she had ever lost anything. Yet, this first loss had cost her so much.

An Wuxue and Qin Wei never mentioned the name Lou Wushang again.

The sword array was nearing completion. Zhaoshui City had been shrouded by the barrier for countless years, and the formation was finally about to be set. Once the spiritual energy in the Sword Tomb was sufficient, they could draw the formation patterns, set the array eyes, and carve this sword into the very heavens and earth.

In the final year, Song Wu suddenly became pregnant.

Cultivators lived long lives, but they were rarely blessed with offspring. Across all the sects, if one excluded those who had been taken in from the mortal world, there were hardly any children to be found. Thus, when Lou Wushang was born, they had all cherished him like a precious treasure.

How many years had it been since then?

This child was not a gift from heaven, but one conceived by Song Wu through forbidden arts. When An Wuxue received the news, he said bluntly: "Shuiming, you cannot let her keep this child."

Lou Shuiming was silent.

Qin Wei nudged him gently from the side and whispered: "Ah Xue, Lady Lou thinks of Wushang every day. If there were another child..."

"Birth, aging, sickness, and death are the laws of the Heavenly Dao; no living creature can escape this cycle," he said, lowering his eyes. He knew his tone was stern, but he had to say it. "Forbidden arts are, in the end, forbidden. If this continues, the best outcome is that it ends as a fleeting dream; the worst is that she will be doomed for eternity."

Lou Shuiming hesitated for a long time before saying: "Do you think I haven't tried to persuade her? But, First Seat, it was I who insisted on protecting her in the beginning, and it was I who forced her to fight alongside me when the barrier broke that day. My junior sister wanted to find Wushang, and it was I who ordered all the Tribulation-stage cultivators to defend the Zhaoshui Sword at all costs, forbidding them from leaving. I promised I would protect her and Wushang for a lifetime..."

He glanced toward the direction of the giant Zhaoshui Sword and murmured as if to himself: "With what authority can I stop her?"

An Wuxue was speechless.

After Lou Shuiming left, Qin Wei said to him: "Since you know about Wushang, Lady Lou is merely acting out of private grief. You could just turn a blind eye."

"Ah Xue, when Shuiming brought Lady Lou to Zhaoshui, you advised her to go out and experience the world when you first met. Now, it’s just a child... why are you always so calm and indifferent?"

Calm and indifferent?

He wanted to say that was not true. On the night Lou Wushang died, he had practiced his sword in the courtyard until the grass and trees were withered and the stone table was covered with countless sword marks.

It seemed this was not the first time he had faced such an accusation. He had said things others would not say and done things that lacked sentiment, so those who did not know him well thought him arbitrary and dictatorial, while his close friends called him calm and indifferent.

He opened his mouth but did not know how to explain, or what to say. In the end, he said nothing at all.

Until the final step of the formation.

They drew upon the power of the four great spiritual veins. Qin Wei, not skilled in arrays, led all the cultivators of Zhaoshui to guard the four corners of the city, while An Wuxue and Lou Shuiming were responsible for injecting massive amounts of spiritual energy into the already-drawn patterns.

The giant sword hummed, showing signs of reaching toward the heavens. Before the Ten Thousand Sword Array was even fully connected, the miasma near the Eastern Sea had already begun to recede.

Those months were the most chaotic Zhaoshui City had seen in hundreds of years. Yet, Lou Shuiming wore his first smile since the early death of Lou Wushang. He even brought Song Wu, who had not left her quarters for a long time, to the base of the Zhaoshui Sword and pointed to the array centers that were about to be completed: "Junior sister, the Zhaoshui Sword Array will soon be finished. Once the Zhaoshui Sword replaces the Heavenly Pillar, the Four Seas Ten Thousand Sword Array will finally be cast, and we... we will see a different world."

Song Wu did not speak, but she nodded softly.

Three days later, Lou Shuiming and Song Wu’s second child was born. It was another boy, and even at birth, one could see that his features were nearly identical to those of Lou Wushang when he was young.

But as Song Wu held the child, her expression was vacant, devoid of any joy.

Song Wu’s Dao heart was unstable, and having conceived through forbidden arts against the natural order, the child was born with dead meridians. Those with dead meridians had blocked channels and stagnant blood and bone; one could not even detect a breath.

Even in the days before the immortals had fallen, a fetus born with dead meridians could only survive if, in the first few days of life, an immortal of longevity assisted them, injecting spiritual energy to clear their bones and meridians.

But there were no immortals of longevity left in this world. In the span of a few short days, they could not find anyone with such immense spiritual power to save the child.

Lou Shuiming stood by in silence for a long time before gritting his teeth and stepping forward to take the child. He said: "Junior sister, the sword array is about to be completed. I... I will send him to the Sword Tomb."

In the Sword Tomb lay thousands of spiritual swords whose owners had perished, along with their remains, and Lou Wushang.

Song Wu, however, hugged the child—who would neither cry nor move—pushed him away, took a few steps back, and screamed: "He is still alive!! I can find a way!"

Lou Shuiming stepped forward again, only to see Song Wu pointing her sword at him, her spiritual energy erupting to keep him from approaching. Lou Shuiming could not possibly engage her in a life-or-death struggle.

The Zhaoshui Sword Array was waiting for him; he could not remain deadlocked here, so he said to Song Wu: "Fine, wait for me to return, and we will think of a way together."

He knew, in truth, that there was no way. But he also knew that for Song Wu, before the loss of her first child, everything had come too easily, and she had never lost anything. She always felt that there was nothing in this world she could not keep or obtain.

He could not persuade her, and he had no time left to try.

He rushed to the foot of the Zhaoshui Sword and, without mentioning the matter of their second son, began to set the formation with An Wuxue.

The sword array reached its final step. The demons outside the barrier were becoming increasingly violent. Qin Wei was stretched thin, and neither the Luoyue disciples nor the Zhaoshui cultivators could spare a moment to relax their guard.

Within the array’s eye, only An Wuxue and Lou Shuiming remained. They were supposed to set the final patterns together.

But at that very moment—

The Zhaoshui Sword trembled, and the spiritual energy within the formation surged wildly out of control. Several array centers collapsed. An Wuxue was shaken so violently that his internal organs churned, and he coughed up a mouthful of blood, his face changing instantly: "What is happening? The spiritual energy is insufficient! The formation cannot be set!?"

But this spiritual energy was what they had spent months carefully preserving within the array. How could it...?

Lou Shuiming’s pupils dilated in shock, and he muttered to himself: "It is me... one of the places where I injected spiritual energy has been severed..."

But the formation only recognized the signatures of the two of them. Who could have manipulated such a massive amount of spiritual energy right under their noses?

At that moment, a thick miasma churned within the sword array and shot into the sky.

The two looked at each other and immediately mounted their swords, flying straight toward the source of the miasma. When they arrived, An Wuxue had already summoned his sword, Chunhua, ready to deliver a full-force strike—whoever was wreaking havoc on Zhaoshui at this moment, they could not be spared.

But after seeing the red-clad figure clearly, the spiritual energy at his fingertips faltered, and he was forced to come to a sudden halt.

Lou Shuiming looked ahead in disbelief: "Junior sister..."

There stood Song Wu, holding the child, her expression indifferent. Her red robes fluttered violently in the wind. Surrounded by miasma, the pressure of a Tribulation-stage cultivator radiating from her, she had actually cultivated the miasma and reached the peak of the Tribulation phase, standing only half a step away from ascending to immortality.