“It’s Nalin, it must be Nalin! I want to go down!”
“Brother Ran, it must be very dangerous down there, you can’t go!”
Mo Wei grabbed my hand, but I pushed him away: “I have missed a lifetime with him. No matter what, we must live and die together in this life. If he is gone, I will never live alone.”
“Alright,” Qing Jue sighed. “Hundreds of years ago, I was unable to save you, unable to stop the Young Saint Lord from falling into darkness, allowing such a kind person to descend into the abyss. It has always been my regret. Now, if I can help you, this regret of mine may finally be able to be remedied. Mo Wei—”
“I’m here!”
“This time, eliminating the female demon who seeks to ascend to immortality is your only chance to return to the divine realm. You are the only disciple of mine who has yet to ascend. If you mess this up again, just get lost and never come to see me again!”
“Yes!” Mo Wei straightened his back and quickly took off his shirt. Heat immediately radiated from his body. I saw that on his exposed honey-colored body, there were traces of red-gold lines along the muscular texture, like flames burning on the surface of his skin. I couldn’t help but stare in astonishment. He glanced at me shyly and said, “This is the Nine Heavens Fire. Stay close to me, it’s warm.”
“What a f*cking idiot!” Qing Jue couldn’t help but swear and slapped him on the back of the head. He looked at me and resumed his usual calm demeanor.
“Xiao Qi and I will stay in this cave to protect the Young Saint Lord’s heart. Mo Wei is the most powerful disciple under my tutelage. Having him protect you is enough.”
I nodded in shock.
“Come on, Brother Ran, I’ll carry you down.” Mo Wei half-knelt down and turned his back to me.
I was stunned: “Carry me… down?”
He nodded. “I’ll carry you down, it will be faster and safer than using a climbing rope.”
When I was lying on Mo Wei’s back, being carried as he glided towards the forest, I realized that what was written in novels about immortals flying on swords was actually true, though instead of a sword, he was using a carbon fiber three-world retractable climbing pole we had just bought at the mall.
And when Qing Jue said he had been playing around in the mortal world, neglecting his cultivation for many years, it wasn’t a lie. Several times, I thought he was going to crash, but luckily, he landed smoothly in the end… though his head ended up buried in the ground.
I was still shaken, my legs weak, almost collapsing to the ground. But I forced myself to stay calm and pulled his head out of the dirt. “Ah Wei, are you… alright?”
I wasn’t sure if someone like him, a half-immortal who had ascended and then been demoted, could get a concussion. He lay there with his eyes rolled back for a while, then rubbed his head and stood up. Twisting his neck with a couple of cracking sounds, he grinned widely, showing his trademark carefree smile. “Hehe, refreshing.”
“……”
I wiped the sweat from my brow, stood up, and looked around. Not far to the west was the collapsed sky pit. A large area of trees within a several-mile radius had fallen, lying scattered in all directions.
As I got closer, I realized that it wasn’t just trees lying around the sky pit… there were also people.
To be precise, they were corpses. These people had been strangled by tree vines, their bodies torn apart. Occasionally, some faces were still intact, revealing Southeast Asian features — clearly, they were the Thai shamans raised by that female demon. There were more than thirty of them from my rough count.
Nalin was all alone.
My heart tightened as I looked into the pit. The tree roots were twisted and gnarled, and the darkness below was so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom. Suddenly, there was a loud rumble from below, and a violent tremor shook the ground beneath us. Mo Wei quickly grabbed me, shouting, “Be careful!” The ground beneath us then gave way, and we plunged straight down with the crumbling earth!
In midair, I felt my waist and ankles tighten as countless tree vines gently wrapped around me. Nalin! My heart jolted. Suddenly, a chilling, soul-piercing laugh echoed through the darkness, seeming to approach from the front.
“Stay away from him a bit!” A wave of heat swept across my cheek, and a blazing light illuminated the scene before me.
The tree vines twisted into a cage, enveloping me. I widened my eyes, peering through the tightly interwoven gaps in the vines. Over the figure of Mo Wei standing in front of me, I saw not far away a figure of a woman with white hair, her entire body covered in golden scales. Behind her was a halo, like the divine wheels seen in ancient murals, resembling a solar corona, emitting a spectrum of dazzling colors, just like Nalin from years ago.
“It’s a Dharma form. It seems she has been worshipping the Naga Dragon King in Thailand and has truly received protection. If she obtains the relic within the Saint Lord’s body, she will surely ascend.”
Hearing Mo Wei’s whisper, I couldn’t help but grit my teeth in anger. The Dharma form was forged by taking Nalin’s celestial destiny and the lives of countless people. I couldn’t understand how the foreign gods and Buddhas could be so blind.
She looked back at me with a gaze that felt like she was examining a tiny ant, filled with both contempt and resentment.
“All because of you… My once obedient son, first you tried to kill me, and now you want to die along with me.”
Die along together?
I looked down at her, and beneath the countless tree vines, there was a massive, blood-red, spherical mass of flesh, slowly wriggling. Some parts seemed to have been charred, turning into ash-like blackness.
Although it no longer resembled a human form, I knew it was him — Nalin.
He was injured, badly injured.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I knelt, gripping the tree vines that enveloped me, and shouted, “Nalin!”
“Stop calling out to him, he’s already at the end of his strength… The vengeful spirits he devoured have all been exorcised by my disciples, there’s nothing more to be done for him now. All that’s left is this foundation body, which can still fight me to the death,” she said with a light laugh. “Nalin, this foundation body was formed from your father’s relic, something he owes me. Now, I’m going to take it back. Be good, and Mother will spare the life of your beloved.”
The flesh mass wriggled violently, causing the ground to tremble as if the entire earth were angrily cracking open.
“I won’t… trust you again.” Nalin’s voice came from deep beneath the ground.
“You don’t deserve a son like him!” I shouted at her. “Do you know, despite being forced by you to cultivate, what Nalin’s true wish was? He wanted to redeem you after ascending to become a god! Even though he never received your love, he loved you deeply. But you? As a mother, you’ve poured all your hatred for this world onto him!”
Her expression froze for a moment as she looked down, seemingly moved for an instant, but it was fleeting, quickly turning cold again. “What do you understand? Family… is the most useless thing. If it weren’t for my parents offering me up so my brother could marry, how would I have ended up as a temple prostitute in the Champa Sect? The first son I bore in that cult… for a mere offering, he abandoned me without hesitation. Parents? Children? They’re nothing but knives that cut into your heart and bones!”
After saying that, she raised one hand and summoned a vajra bell, shaking it. She looked upwards, as if waiting for something. I followed her gaze but saw nothing.
—Was she waiting for Ming Luo?
“Luo’er!” She shouted sharply, “Don’t you want to take over his body and be with your beloved? If you dare defy me, not to mention a physical form, I will also make sure you turn to ashes!”
“He won’t come! He won’t be controlled by you anymore!” I yelled at her.
“Good, another son who abandoned me… Have you reconciled with your older brother?” She sneered, and the vajra bell in her hand emitted a blazing white light. It suddenly expanded, elongating into a weapon resembling a vajra, charging toward me with a swift thrust!
A mass of red flesh and blood suddenly appeared in front of me, and it condensed into a giant hand, grabbing the vajra — that was Nalin’s other hand. The smell of burnt flesh rushed towards me, and I saw that the surface of the giant hand that touched the vajra was rapidly turning black and carbonized, just like a vampire burned by the sun. Countless ashes flew onto my face, and my heart trembled: “Nalin!”
I grabbed the vines, trying to break free from the protective cage, but then I heard a rumble from below. Countless vines suddenly surged upward, lifting both me and Mo Wei high into the air, all the way to the edge of the sinkhole.
Below, the blood-red fleshy ball wrapped in vines squirmed, resembling an embryo still undeveloped in a womb. It cracked open in the center, instantly swallowing the figure of the female demon, and at the same time, it was abruptly pierced by the Vajra!
“Do you want the relic? Then, Mother, you cut open my flesh and take it yourself!”
The blood orb convulsed and contracted, as if it were rasping and chewing. Its surface was punctured in multiple places by the tip of the Vajra, oozing thick, bright red blood that glowed with a golden hue, riddled with holes.
This didn’t seem like a simple fight… it was more like Nalin was repaying her kindness of giving birth to him with his own flesh and blood.
My eyes were blurred, my heart ached so much that I almost suffocated, and I just wanted to go down and accompany him.
“Mo Wei! Nine Heavens Fire!”
When I heard Nalin’s voice, I was startled, looked at Mo Wei beside me, and shook my head: “No!
Mo Wei glanced at me, frowned, and hesitated: “Young Saint Lord…”
“If we don’t kill her, she will go and kill Ranran!”
Mo Wei stood stunned for a moment, then no longer looked at me. With one hand forming a gesture in front of his chest, countless golden and red flames instantly coalesced into a golden phoenix. Letting out a long cry, it dove into the pit below!
“No!” I shouted, my heart feeling as though it were being torn apart.
“Boom,” the entire sinkhole erupted into flames, the blood-red flesh ball was instantly engulfed by the roaring fire. Countless tree vines that had been lifting us were burned to ashes in an instant, and below, it turned into a sea of flames.
The tree cage fell downward but was suspended in mid-air, held up by Mo Wei.
“Wait… that female demon isn’t dead yet!”
I looked down and saw a figure with white hair rising slowly from the sea of flames. The blood-red flesh ball beneath her had shattered, blackened, and unrecognizable.
A wave of immense despair weighed on my heart as I saw her looking down at her own palm, only ashes remained, and with a gust of wind, nothing was left.
“It’s impossible! How could there be nothing left…?” She shouted furiously, lifting her head to glare at me. Her blue eyes locked onto mine, and madness gleamed in the depths of her gaze. “You guys must have hidden it…”
Suddenly, from the pitch-black remains below, a long, dark shadow shot out and wrapped itself around her fiercely. The shadow’s body was covered with countless human hands along its sides, like a centipede. It clawed and tore at her body while dragging her deeper into the wreckage. The female demon struggled but couldn’t break free. Her golden scales peeled off one by one as she twisted desperately, letting out screams of agony.
“What is this…”
“Do you not recognize me anymore? My beloved goddess consort, my good wife… Thanks to you, you helped me break free from Nalin’s binding for so many years, hahahaha…”
It’s… Nalin’s father, the leader of the Champa Sect.
I stared in shock, hearing a loud “boom” as rolling thunder echoed above. When I looked up, I saw a ball of lightning gathering and taking shape in the sky.
“Not good, it’s the Heavenly Tribulation! It must be something the Young Saint Lord triggered; this is a trap he set!” Mo Wei’s voice rang out, and in the next instant, I was pulled by him and thrown onto a nearby mountain. Almost simultaneously, a blinding lightning bolt struck down into the crater.
At that moment, the entire forest sea erupted into a blazing inferno.
I stood dazed, staring at the sea of fire below. I didn’t know how much time had passed when, suddenly, a few droplets of moisture touched my face.
It started to rain.
In the distance, a low, dragon-like roar echoed through the air.
I followed the sound and looked towards the opposite snow-capped mountain, where clouds and mist swirled. A long white shadow appeared faintly, resembling a dragon. The mountain wind blew toward me, carrying the scent of burning grass and leaves, though it was greatly diluted by the rain. Ming Luo, are you bringing the rain to extinguish the fire and save your elder brother?
Countless ashes drifted towards me, white and gray, filling the sky. I looked up, and suddenly, a vivid streak of red gently landed at the corner of my eye, like a tender kiss.
“Ranran, wait for me.” Nalin’s familiar voice reached me through the wind.
I grabbed the flower petal, rushed out, ran across the street, and dashed into the forest.
“Tunshe Nalin, I love you—”
I shouted towards the snow mountain, my voice lingering in the harsh mountain wind, echoing back from the surrounding peaks.
I will wait for you, in this lifetime, until I grow old. I’ll always wait for you.
I know you will definitely come back.
