Evening.
The sky over Red Dust Mountain darkened a little earlier than usual.
Gu Chengming stood beneath the eaves of the Quiet Contemplation Court, his gaze fixed on the horizon.
The black-and-white currents of the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation drifted slowly through the high sky as always, but through the perceptual access granted by the Yin-Yang Fish, Gu Chengming saw something invisible to the naked eye—
The outermost three layers of nodes in the formation—their qi-flow had slowed considerably over the past two hours. The change was minute, so slight that even if Elder Kurong came to look herself she might not detect it, but Gu Chengming knew what it meant.
That thing should be arriving soon.
He withdrew his gaze, turned, and walked inside.
Spread across the table were the formation-improvement blueprints Xu Huayi had left behind. The adjustment of every single node had been derived and verified over and over; the corners of the blueprints were a little frayed—traces of Xu Huayi's three sleepless days and nights of rushed work.
He reached out and lightly tapped the position of the central Formation Eye on the blueprints.
Everything was ready.
The formation had been improved. The controls on the Sword-Seeking Pavilion had been loosened. The long-suppressed emotions of the disciples were brewing above Red Dust Mountain into a pink mist so thick it was almost material.
And that thing was drawing closer, bit by bit, following the scent of that mist.
Before nightfall, Fu Xiaoxiao paid a visit.
Today she hadn't tied her hair into a ponytail; instead it hung loose over her shoulders, and a few stray strands blew against her cheeks in the evening wind, but she couldn't be bothered to brush them away.
"The screening's done." She sat down across from Gu Chengming and drew a roster from her sleeve, laying it on the table. "The last batch, thirty-seven people—the Heart Gu and Red Dust Seeds have all been cleared out."
"Worried about something?" Fu Xiaoxiao stared at him for several breaths.
Gu Chengming hesitated, but didn't tell Fu Xiaoxiao what might happen tonight.
It wasn't a matter of distrust. It was that if his judgment was correct, Fu Xiaoxiao was precisely the person who most needed to be kept clear of it tonight.
She was one of the cultivators in the Harmonious Joy Sect most deeply versed in the Red Dust Art. If that thing really came, she would be the one most affected.
"Senior sister." Gu Chengming spoke, weighing his words. "I'll probably be busy until late tonight. Go back and rest early."
Fu Xiaoxiao raised an eyebrow.
"No Dual Cultivation, then?"
When she said it, she no longer hid it the way she had these past few days; there was even a note of righteous entitlement in her tone, as if this had already become an established item on their shared schedule.
"Not today." Gu Chengming smiled. "I'll make it up tomorrow."
Fu Xiaoxiao gave a soft hmph, not quite satisfied, but she didn't press.
She stood and, at the doorway, suddenly halted.
"Little Gu."
"Hm?"
She didn't turn around, only tilted half her face, revealing a small stretch of cheek reddened by the sunset glow:
"I like you."
"I know."
Only after hearing this did Fu Xiaoxiao leave, contented, her footsteps fading down the stone steps until they finally dissolved into the twilight.
Gu Chengming watched Xiaoxiao's small figure disappear around the corner and stood there a long while.
Then he closed the door, turned to the desk, and drew a communication jade slip from the very back of the drawer. "Fellow Daoist Xu."
The jade slip lit up, and Xu Huayi's voice came back almost instantly.
"The formation is all in position. The deflection angles of every node have been fine-tuned according to what you said."
"Thank you."
"Thank me for what?" Xu Huayi paused, then asked, "Fellow Daoist Gu, are you certain that thing will come tonight?"
"Not certain," Gu Chengming answered truthfully. "But if it really comes following the scent of the Red Dust Seed, then tonight will be the best opportunity."
"If I were it, I wouldn't wait any longer."
"I'll be standing by at the formation's nexus." Xu Huayi's voice regained the composure befitting an envoy of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau. "The moment you give the signal, the formation will complete its closure within three breaths."
"Good." Gu Chengming put away the jade slip, walked to the window, and pushed it open.
The night wind poured in, carrying the warm breath unique to Red Dust Mountain, mingled with flower fragrance and Red Dust Qi.
Among the distant peaks, one could faintly see points of light moving in twos and threes—the disciples of the Sword-Seeking Pavilion gathering at night, exchanging new details of their respective Dream Sword Cultivators, their laughter audible even from far away.
That laughter was lovely.
Gu Chengming closed his eyes and let the Yin-Yang Fish's perceptual access stretch his consciousness across all of Red Dust Mountain.
He "saw" many things. On a stone bench beside the training grounds, Su Xiashao was gnawing on an osmanthus cake while flipping through the latest issue of the Sword-Seeking Pavilion Special, the corners of her mouth curled high, letting out silly "heh heh" giggles now and then.
In the inner disciples' dormitory, Qīng Luó was again drawing a new version of the "Dream Sword Cultivator"—this time a view from behind. She studied the paper for a long while, then nodded in satisfaction.
Su Qiuzhi sat alone at the cliff's edge on the back mountain, both legs dangling over the drop and swinging, gripping a cheap jade pendant she'd bought from Joy Town, on which was carved a crooked character "Gu"—clearly carved by herself, and very poorly done.
Elder Kurong was brewing tea in her room, sitting alone and staring blankly at an empty Go board, on which only a single white stone was placed—the last move Yun Ni had never played in life. Elder Jingxin sat under the lamplight writing reply letters to the disciples who had been affected by the Heart Gu, every one of them long, the handwriting neat and gentle.
Fu Xiaoxiao returned to her own quarters, sat by the window in a daze for a while, then dug out a little booklet from under her pillow and leafed through it page by page—recorded within was every date since she and Gu Chengming had begun spending time together, each date followed by one or two brief sentences.
"He called me senior sister!"
"I'm done for—why does his smile look so good?"
"Dual! Cultivation! A! Chieved! Eh heh heh heh heh"
The last page bore today's date, and Fu Xiaoxiao hesitated a moment before writing:
"I'll walk with him all the way... until there's no road left."
Gu Chengming withdrew his perception and opened his eyes, and something rose in his heart—a few things he genuinely wanted to do, apart from clearing the galgame.
There was no grand reason, no great cause for all the living beings of the world—just these ordinary, trivial, even somewhat laughable everyday moments.
He didn't want these things to disappear.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance suddenly spoke up: Heavenly Emperor Gu!]
—Hm?
[Leave the fighting to this Heavenly Emperor.]
Gu Chengming gave a small laugh.
—All right.
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula hesitated a moment, but in the end still couldn't bring itself to say the line: leave the running away to me.]
Damn, good thing you didn't say it—that would've killed morale too much.
Gu Chengming thought, a little helplessly.
The hour of Zi.
The night over Red Dust Mountain changed without any warning.
It didn't grow darker—it grew "heavier," as if an invisible membrane slowly unfurled from the horizon and draped itself over the entire peak. That membrane had no color, no shape, not even a fluctuation of spiritual energy, but it pressed down on every heart, making everyone feel at once an inexplicable, groundless sorrow.
The first to sense something amiss were the outer disciples of the lowest cultivation.
In a dormitory, a first-realm girl who had only recently joined suddenly set down the storybook in her hands. She didn't know why she was crying—just moments ago she'd been chatting and laughing with her roommate about the Dream Sword Cultivator, yet the tears simply wouldn't stop falling.
"What's wrong?" Another female disciple leaned in, her voice full of concern.
"I don't know..." She wiped the corner of her eye, her voice trembling a little. "I suddenly really want to cry."
The roommate froze, and then she too noticed the wetness welling up in her own eyes.
At that same moment, across all of Red Dust Mountain, such scenes played out simultaneously in countless corners.
Some crouched down abruptly mid-stride, hugging their knees and weeping soundlessly; some halted mid-practice, staring blankly at their own palms; some fell silent mid-laughter, their throats as if plugged by something. No one knew what was happening, but everyone felt the same emotion.
Sorrow.
Pure, intense sorrow that did not belong to them.
Su Xiashao was struck by that sorrow in her dormitory.
She was getting ready for bed, her clothes only half removed, when that emotion surged up without warning, as if someone had poured an entire ocean into her chest, drowning everything.
She recalled that trial three years ago.
That year she'd been full of spirit, feeling the whole world lay beneath her feet, and before setting out she'd even quarreled with Su Qiuzhi, saying some very ugly things.
"That's all you amount to—don't ever dream of catching up to me in your whole life."
She remembered Su Qiuzhi's expression back then.
Many died on that trial; Su Qiuzhi nearly died too, while she, having been reassigned to another group at the last minute, came back without a scratch.
When she came back she went to find Su Qiuzhi, and what she saw was someone lying on a sickbed. Seeing her arrive, Su Qiuzhi strained to tug at the corner of her mouth.
"I didn't die—disappointed?"
Su Xiashao sat down by the bed, wanting to say something, but could say nothing at all.
These memories churned up in the flood of sorrow, as clear as if they'd happened only yesterday, and her cultivation was draining away uncontrollably.
It wasn't being siphoned off—she herself was actively giving it up. That sorrow was too real, so real that she almost believed it—that everything beautiful in the world would ultimately be lost, all effort would ultimately be wasted, all companionship would ultimately end in parting.
Every sorrow ever experienced, every loss, every regret one didn't want to face when waking from a midnight dream—all would be dredged up as it drew near, magnified, and magnified again, until you drowned in your own memories.
Su Qiuzhi held out a little longer than Su Xiashao.
She was, after all, someone who had crawled her way up through adversity. That secret realm three years ago had nearly cost her life, and every day afterward had been clawed out of pain, bit by bit.
But even so, that sorrow still found her weak spot.
She sat at the cliff's edge on the back mountain, gripping the cheap jade pendant carved with the character "Gu" so tightly her knuckles paled from the force.
She remembered the words Gu Chengming had said in the dream.
"You don't have to become anyone, Su Qiuzhi. At least with me, you only need to be yourself."
But what use was being herself?
Being herself meant never catching up to Su Xiashao; being herself meant nearly dying on a trial; being herself meant expending every ounce of effort just to barely stand at others' starting line.
Being herself meant—even when she liked someone, she didn't know how to say it, and could only clumsily carve an ugly jade pendant, then sit alone at the cliff's edge clutching it in a daze.
Tears slid down her chin and dripped onto the pendant, wetting that crooked character.
The voice in her mind began to grow anxious.
[Hey, hey! Don't sink into this emotion—wake up, quick!]
But sadly, Su Qiuzhi could no longer hear it.
Elder Kurong and Elder Jingxin noticed something was wrong almost at the same moment.
As Fourth Realm cultivators, their resistance to emotion far surpassed that of ordinary disciples, but that sorrow still seeped in—only in a more insidious way.
Kurong looked at that solitary white stone on the board and suddenly felt very tired. Having lived so many years, having watched so many people come and go, so many partings of life and death, in the end the people around her had left one after another—how much longer did she still have to keep holding up these old bones?
Elder Jingxin, meanwhile, discovered her hand trembling as she wrote. She had written all her life and her hand had never trembled, but now the trail of her brush-tip across the paper was crooked, like a child just learning to write.
—Something's wrong.
Kurong was the first to react.
She shot to her feet, spiritual energy erupting around her, forcibly suppressing that emotion. The stones on the board were jolted into bouncing by the backlash of spiritual energy, and that white stone rolled to the floor with a crisp clink.
"An outside enemy has invaded!"
Her divine sense instantly blanketed all of Red Dust Mountain, and then she saw a sight that chilled her spine.
Across all of Red Dust Mountain, more than half the disciples had already fallen into varying degrees of emotional breakdown. The outer disciples were the worst off—some had already fainted, the spiritual energy in their Seas of Consciousness leaking out uncontrollably.
The inner disciples fared a little better, but many of them too could no longer circulate their techniques properly.
Something catastrophic had happened.
Fu Xiaoxiao's quarters.
As Fu Xiaoxiao leafed through that little booklet, she suddenly smiled, and then, still smiling, her tears began to fall.
Not out of sorrow—at least not at first.
At first it was only a faint touch, and that touch slipped in along her longing for Gu Chengming. Then that longing began to sour, and she remembered the day her Dao foundation shattered.
Everyone thought she was going to die, and she herself thought she was going to die too. Back then there was no Gu Chengming; back then she had not a single person by her side.
If I die here, she thought, probably no one will remember me.
This thought was infinitely magnified under Sorrow's catalysis.
Fu Xiaoxiao's body began to tremble.
She was afraid of returning to that loneliness, and then that sorrow found the thing she feared most: what if one day Gu Chengming was gone too?
Fu Xiaoxiao's pupils abruptly went slack. She was a Fourth Realm cultivator, one of the elders of the Harmonious Joy Sect most deeply versed in the Red Dust Art, and precisely for that reason, the effect on her was greater than on anyone else.
The little booklet slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor.
Fu Xiaoxiao slowly toppled by the window, her eyes unfocused, those always lively, bright eyes turning hollow and dim.
In her Sea of Consciousness, spiritual energy was draining outward at an extremely slow, irreversible pace.
And high above all of Red Dust Mountain, a gray humanoid silhouette hovered at the outermost layer of the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation, its face grief-stricken, tear-tracks at the corners of its eyes that would never dry.
Sorrow.
It had no target, nor did it need one; it had simply come here following the scent of the Red Dust Seed, and then began to do the only thing it knew how to do.
—Feeding.
The sorrow, fear, despair, and loneliness bursting forth from the thousand-odd disciples of the Harmonious Joy Sect in this moment—these pure, intense emotions, stripped of memory and causality—were turning into strand upon strand of thread invisible to the naked eye, converging toward it from every corner of Red Dust Mountain.
The threads coiled around it, absorbed, devoured, digested.
Sorrow's outline grew clearer and clearer, more and more substantial.
It was congealing into a physical body.
Through the perceptual access granted by the Yin-Yang Fish, Gu Chengming "saw" everything happening on Red Dust Mountain.
He saw Su Xiashao curled up in the corner of her bed; he saw Su Qiuzhi at the cliff's edge shedding tears while gripping her pendant; he saw the stubborn back of Elder Kurong fighting that sorrow alone; he saw Elder Jingxin's trembling fingers; he saw Qīng Luó crumple her unfinished painting into a ball and toss it to the floor, then slump over her desk and weep in silence.
He saw Fu Xiaoxiao.
Gu Chengming closed his eyes.
"Fellow Daoist Xu."
His voice was as calm as a pool of dead water, but beneath that dead water was something scalding, nearly searing.
The jade slip lit up.
"Received."
Xu Huayi's reply was only two words, but Gu Chengming knew that behind those two words lay three days and three nights of sleepless derivation, and everything a genius of the formation Dao could give.
The next instant—
BOOM!!
All of Red Dust Mountain shuddered violently.
Every node of the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation completed its deflection at the same instant. The black and white currents abruptly changed their flow, from encircling to constricting, from protecting to imprisoning.
One thousand and twenty-four formation nodes completed, within three breaths, the conversion from a "Great Mountain-Guarding Formation" to a "Siege-and-Kill Sealing Formation."
The gray figure hovering at the formation's outer layer was locked in place by the suddenly tightening formation. The two energies of yin and yang turned into ten million chains, twisting in from all directions, binding Sorrow's form fast.
It did not struggle, only continued doing what it had been doing all along—feeding. The threads of emotion rising from Red Dust Mountain were not cut off by the formation's closure; they still converged toward Sorrow in an endless stream.
The formation trapped its body, but could not trap its essence.
Xu Huayi stood at the formation's nexus, the Judge's Brush in her hand ceaselessly tracing runes in the void, maintaining the formation's operation.
Fine beads of sweat had already seeped from her forehead. The formation had indeed trapped Sorrow, but trapping and destroying were two different matters.
That thing was dissolving the formation's binding force in a way she couldn't comprehend—not by resisting head-on, but by corroding it from within. The yin-yang chains coiled around it were being assimilated by its emotion, bit by bit.
At this rate, the formation could hold for the time of one stick of incense at most.
"Fellow Daoist Gu!" Xu Huayi transmitted through the jade slip. "The formation's assimilation is thirty percent faster than expected—are your preparations ready?"
The Quiet Contemplation Court.
Gu Chengming stood in the courtyard. The moonlight could no longer reach in; overhead was the black-and-white vortex formed by the constricted Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation, and at the vortex's center, that gray figure was slowly congealing into a physical form.
"Ready."
His reply was terse.
Then he closed his eyes, his consciousness no longer confined to "observing" but actively opening toward all of Red Dust Mountain, reaching out to touch every person's emotions.
Not in the manner of the Red Dust Art, to "manipulate" or "guide," but in a more primal, more instinctive way—
As a vessel that could take on the sorrow of everyone.
And that trigger had been planted half a month ago.
The Dream Sword Cultivator.
Su Xiashao curled in the corner of her bed, tears blurring her vision.
But just as she felt she was about to be completely swallowed by that sorrow, a trace of warmth suddenly welled up in her heart.
That warmth was very faint, like a single point of lamplight glimpsed from a distant window on a winter night, but it was truly there.
She didn't know what it was, but that warmth made her think of that dream.
In the dream, someone had said to her: "You're already very impressive."
It made no sense—it was just a dream.
But Su Xiashao just couldn't help reaching out a hand, groping toward the direction of that warmth—
Su Qiuzhi felt the same thing through her tears; that warmth made her recall a single sentence.
"You don't have to become anyone."
She lowered her head, looking at the tear-soaked pendant in her hand, the pad of her finger stroking that ugly character "Gu."
Then she gripped it tight.
Qīng Luó lifted her head from the desk, not knowing where that warmth came from, but it made her recall the sword-bearing figure standing in her dream, the back she'd drawn forty-eight versions of and still couldn't get right.
But strangely, in this moment she suddenly felt it didn't matter that she couldn't get it right.
Because what mattered wasn't what he looked like, but that he made her feel she'd been seen.
Across all of Red Dust Mountain, over a thousand Harmonious Joy Sect disciples felt the same warmth at the same moment.
The shape of that warmth differed from person to person, but it pointed in the same direction.
And everyone's emotions—whether sorrow, fear, loneliness, or longing—all began to flow along that warmth, converging, surging toward the same place.
Surging toward the one whose face they'd never seen, yet whom they'd resolved upon in their dreams.
The emotions of over a thousand people poured into Gu Chengming's body at the same instant—sorrow, fear, loneliness, unwillingness, attachment, longing, yearning, obsession—countless emotions, carrying countless people's memory fragments, cascaded in through the entrance of his Sea of Consciousness.
A gush of bloody sweetness surged up in Gu Chengming's nostrils.
[The Qingxin Formula said with some worry: The load on the Sea of Consciousness is too great—if this keeps up—]
—I know.
In his mind echoed the voices of a thousand people at once—some crying, some shouting, some laughing, some silent.
"..." "This game of Go will never be finished after all." "I won't ever admit defeat." "Can I really catch up to her?"
"What if he's gone?" That was Fu Xiaoxiao's voice.
Gu Chengming did not stop.
Sorrow was devouring emotions, while he was gathering emotions. The threads of emotion that had originally converged toward Sorrow began to turn, began to surge toward the direction where Gu Chengming was.
Sorrow noticed. It felt the emptiness of its "food" being snatched away.
The gray figure moved for the first time within the formation's cage. It turned its head, that eternally grief-stricken face facing the direction of the Quiet Contemplation Court.
"It's materializing!" Xu Huayi's voice came from the jade slip, carrying an urgency she couldn't suppress. "Fellow Daoist Gu, now's the moment!"
Gu Chengming opened his eyes. The emotions of over a thousand people churned, collided, and blended in his Sea of Consciousness, so vast they nearly drowned his consciousness.
These emotions were too jumbled—sorrow mixed with joy, fear churned together with courage, loneliness tangled inextricably with attachment. They contradicted, conflicted with, and canceled one another out, unable to form any effective force at all.
Emotion itself had no offensive power.
Unless—you gave it a vessel.
Gu Chengming raised his right hand.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance roared with laughter, killing intent boiling: Heavenly Emperor Gu, I've been waiting all along!]
Dense golden patterns surfaced across Gu Chengming's right arm—the outward manifestation of the Hundred Bones Resonance running at full power, every line pulsing wildly, like a living thing.
And those emotions churning in his Sea of Consciousness had finally found an outlet.
The sorrow, fear, loneliness, unwillingness, attachment, and longing of over a thousand people—all these emotions surged along his will toward his right arm, toward the vessel constructed by the Hundred Bones Resonance.
But it wasn't enough. These emotions were too jumbled and scattered, like a heap of loose sand; even with a vessel they were merely a chaotic mass of power. He needed a "core."
A core emotion strong enough, pure enough, to unify all the emotions.
Love was too passive, fear too fragile, yearning too gentle... none of these would do.
Then what to use?
Gu Chengming lowered his head, looking at his right fist.
The golden patterns interwove into a dense net across the face of his fist, the emotions of over a thousand people churning within it, desperately in need of a direction.
He thought of the Harmonious Joy Sect disciples who had died because of the Eternal Life Sect, of Li Suizhuang with her suppressed emotions, of the misled Yun Ni... he thought of Fu Xiaoxiao's little booklet.
"I'll walk with him all the way... until there's no road left."
By what right must you all bear this.
The instant this thought detonated in his heart, all the emotions found their direction.
Pure, unstoppable fury.
That fury was not his alone.
It was the four words into which the suppressed, devoured, stolen emotions of over a thousand people had congealed together after finding an outlet.
—I will not allow it.
Gu Chengming's right fist blazed. The floating, immense Red Dust Qi within his body coiled around it—the power he had accumulated during these days in the Harmonious Joy Sect, from Dual Cultivation, from the Yin-Yang Fish's gift, from the remnants of the Desires of All Beings.
He had never found the chance to compact this floating Red Dust Qi solid... but now there was no need to compact it.
All the Red Dust Qi, ignited by fury, exploded with a roar, turning into a torrent bearing the emotions of over a thousand people, pouring into that right fist empowered to its utmost by the Hundred Bones Resonance.
The sound of bones shattering came from within his body—the meridians of his right arm wailing as they bore power far beyond their limit.
The golden patterns spread from the face of his fist to his wrist, forearm, all the way to his shoulder, every inch of skin cracking apart, blood seeping from the fissures only to be instantly evaporated by that scorching power.
With [Hundred Emperor, aid me] as the vessel, pour this fury out!
This was the plan Gu Chengming had been devising all this while.
Within the formation's cage.
Sorrow's materialization was more than halfway complete, that once-hazy gray outline now much clearer, the tear-tracks on its face no longer illusory lines but real liquid, flowing downward.
It felt its "food" converging toward a certain direction at an unprecedented speed and scale.
In that direction was a "point," and that point was sucking away all its food.
Then it saw a mass of emotion so vast it left it "bewildered."
Within that mass of emotion were far too many things—sorrow, fear, loneliness, unwillingness, attachment, longing—a thousand different heart-cares belonging to a thousand different people.
But all these jumbled, contradictory emotions that should have canceled each other out were, in this moment, swept up, guided, and unified by a single force.
Fury.
In its understanding, all emotions ultimately returned to sorrow, all struggles ultimately returned to extinction.
But that person did not think so.
That person felt it should not be so.
Gu Chengming took a step, and the ground shattered beneath his feet—not the backlash of spiritual energy, but pure force.
He leapt up from the wall of the Quiet Contemplation Court, his form carving a straight trajectory through the night sky, charging directly toward the gray figure within the formation's cage.
The wind shrieked past his ears. His right arm no longer felt pain—not because the pain had vanished, but because that power was so immense that the pain had become irrelevant.
Sorrow completed its materialization at the last moment.
Its body went from illusory to substantial, the tear-tracks congealing into real droplets, the grief-stricken face possessing a real outline for the first time.
—That was the "only chance of victory" Xu Huayi had spoken of.
The instant of materialization.
In that split second from nothingness to substance, it was no longer an untouchable aggregate of emotion, but a genuine, tangible target that could be struck.
This window was extremely brief.
So brief it lasted only the time of a single punch.
That was enough.
Later, someone asked Xu Huayi what that punch was like.
She thought for a long time, and in the end said only one sentence.
"I didn't see it clearly."
This was not modesty, but fact.
She really hadn't seen it clearly.
She had only seen Gu Chengming's figure burning, wrapped in fury, in the night sky, then colliding with a roar against that gray humanoid—like a battered body wreathed in raging flames.
The instant the fist came down, the emotions of over a thousand people found their outlet for release all at once.
That heaviness and gloom—devoured by Sorrow, suppressed in their chests almost to the point of suffocation, piled up over an entire night—at the moment Gu Chengming's fist-edge touched Sorrow's physical form.
Su Xiashao jerked her head up in the corner of her bed. She didn't know what had happened, but the mass in her chest that had been blocked all night suddenly burst open, as if someone had chiseled a hole in her heart, and all the sorrow poured out through that hole, replaced by an exhilaration that seemed to burn the very soul.
Su Qiuzhi gripped the pendant tight at the cliff's edge, her fingernails digging into her palm. She shot to her feet and lifted her head toward the night sky.
Qīng Luó rose from her desk. She went to pick up the crumpled painting she'd wadded up, her fingers trembling as she smoothed it flat bit by bit. The sword-bearing figure on the paper was all wrinkled, but as she looked at it, she suddenly smiled.
Elder Kurong bent down and picked up the white Go stone that had rolled to the floor, her withered fingers stroking its surface, then placed it back on the board—not in the position Yun Ni had never played, but in a new position.
Fu Xiaoxiao opened her eyes on the floor, her consciousness still hazy, but she felt that power.
Within that power was fury, protectiveness, unwillingness, resolve.
And an aura she knew all too well, along with the words the other wished to convey to her.
—I won't leave. Not ever.
The fist fell.
The moment Sorrow's physical form met that punch, its entire body was like a wax figure cast into a smelting furnace.
It did not understand what was happening, did not understand why its own body was crumbling, did not understand why the emotions that should have been devoured by it had instead become the power to destroy it.
It only felt an unprecedented heat that set its whole existence trembling.
It was not the heat of flame, nor the heat of spiritual energy, but the heat congealed from all the attachment and fury toward this world, bursting forth from over a thousand living people at the same instant.
Sorrow did not understand, just as it did not understand fury, did not understand protection, did not understand why that person stood before it.
It would never understand now.
BOOM—!!
Golden cracks burst from Sorrow's chest, spreading in every direction along its torso, like a mirror shattering. What surged from the cracks was not blood, nor spiritual energy, but gray, thin emotional residue, dissipating rapidly.
Even in death it did not understand why those emotions had not become its nourishment, but instead the soil that buried it.
Like a clay statue struck by a heavy hammer, like thin ice smashed through by a stone, like a nightmare that had lasted a thousand years finally being punched awake at the moment dawn arrived.
The fragments dispersed into the night wind.
Soundless, without a trace, the world fell quiet.
High above Red Dust Mountain, the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation slowly resumed its original circulation, the black and white currents once again becoming two swimming dragons, encircling the entire peak, one on the left, one on the right.
The traces of Sorrow were blown away bit by bit by the night wind, those gray remnants growing fainter and thinner in the air, until at last it was as if it had never existed.
Xu Huayi put away the Judge's Brush, her legs going weak, and leaned against the stone pillar of the formation's nexus.
Her robes were already soaked through with cold sweat, but the corners of her mouth were curled up.
"It's finally done."
she murmured, her voice carrying a hint of relief after exhaustion.
Gu Chengming landed beneath the osmanthus tree of the Quiet Contemplation Court—more like fell.
His right arm hung limp at his side, utterly powerless now, covered from shoulder to fingertip with fine cracks, blood dripping down through the gaps between his fingers, a shocking sight under the moonlight.
The Red Dust Qi within his body had been poured out entirely in that one punch, his Sea of Consciousness empty, and even standing steady was something of a strain.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance, somewhat spent: Heavenly Emperor Gu, your arm's still there... right?]
Gu Chengming, likewise spent: "Still here. Thank you, Hundred Emperor."
[The Hundred Bones Resonance chuckled: Good, good—we've slain an enemy above our realm again. Truly worthy of the name Heavenly Emperor Gu.]
[Hundred Bones Resonance favorability +15]
Gu Chengming leaned against the osmanthus trunk, tilting his head up to gaze at the night sky overhead.
The halo of the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation spilled down again, soft and warm, like a quilt draped over all of Red Dust Mountain.
Through the Yin-Yang Fish's perceptual access, gradually recovering, he heard the voices of the people across all of Red Dust Mountain, just waking from Sorrow's shadow.
He didn't know how long passed before a burst of hurried footsteps came from afar, closer and closer, faster and faster.
Then a small figure rushed into the Quiet Contemplation Court.
Fu Xiaoxiao ran too fast, nearly tripping on the threshold as she came through the door, staggering two steps before steadying herself.
Her hair hung loose, undried tear-tracks still on her face, her clothes disheveled, her shoes even on the wrong feet—clearly she had rushed over at top speed the moment she regained consciousness.
Then she saw Gu Chengming leaning beneath the osmanthus tree.
Fu Xiaoxiao's eyes instantly reddened. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but her throat was as if plugged by something, and she couldn't get out a single word.
In the end she just leaned forward slightly, pressing her forehead against his shoulder.
"...Bastard, didn't you say nothing would happen tonight?" Her voice was muffled and nasal. "Is playing the lone hero so cool, huh?!"
—Actually, I wasn't alone; there was Fellow Daoist Xu too.
Gu Chengming thought to himself, but didn't say it aloud.
As for lines like how Sorrow-and-Joy was the natural bane of Harmonious Joy Sect cultivators, and involving you would easily lead to mistakes—those needn't be said either.
The plan had succeeded anyway, and besides, Gu Chengming had never once imagined the possibility of failure.
The moonlight was lovely, and the fragrance of osmanthus spread through the night wind.
He lowered his head to look at the small head nestled against his shoulder, and said carefully, "In these fifteen days I've got left at the Harmonious Joy Sect, could I have a few days off to rest first?"
Fu Xiaoxiao nuzzled against him. "Then for the time after, you'll have to make it up to me double."
[The Huiyuan Sword Formula had a sudden realization, and watching this scene before it, quickly jotted it down in its little notebook.]
[For the time after, you'll have to make it up to me double]
Damn it, Little Huiyuan, don't go learning the bad lines.
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