Zhu Hong didn’t know what he wanted but extended her hand anyway. As she watched, Shen Wei placed a palm-sized branch in it. The branch had two tiny buds of green. Such a small branch wasn’t heavy, of course, but somehow Zhu Hong felt as if this unassuming twig contained an extraordinary weight.
“What is—”
“A branch from the Great Divine Tree on Kunlun Mountain,” Shen Wei said. “In all the time since the world was first split, only Nüwa has ever taken a branch from the Great Divine Tree. She planted one of them thousands of zhang below the Huangquan, where it became the Ancient Merit Tree. This is the second branch. Take care of it.”
Zhu Hong stumbled, nearly dropping it. She quickly clutched it in both hands and raised it to her eyes with reverence and awe. She looked as though she wanted to place it on an altar and worship it.
“The branch of the Great Divine Tree failed to thrive when it was planted in the Place of Great Disrespect, most likely because the existence of the gui is anathema to it. Throughout all the years I’ve stood in Kunlun’s stead, I’ve done my very best, but I’ve been unable to care for it well. Millennia have passed, and this branch’s two small buds are all I have to show for my efforts. I’ve always regretted that deeply,” Shen Wei said. “Your fourth uncle may not have the time to worry about you right now. Hide here and stay away from them. If you face danger, each bud will save your life once.”
After a pause, Shen Wei continued, “If you don’t use them, then once the dust settles, please plant it somewhere with beautiful mountains and flowing water.”
He sounded as if he was leaving his last words. Zhu Hong asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to pursue him.”
“Does he still need to be pursued?” Zhu Hong set aside her confusion for a moment. Jealously, she said, “That bastard may have left easily, but now that his anger’s burned away, he’s probably full of regret and waiting for you just up ahead.”
The invisible Shen Wei didn’t respond. Perhaps he had already left.
Zhu Hong’s guess was right on the money. Zhao Yunlan hadn’t gone far at all. He’d found a hiding spot by the opening of the Huangquan Road, and there he squatted, a growing number of cigarette butts littering the ground at his feet.
Afraid of bearing the brunt of his anger, Lin Jing kept his distance. He was observing the fury of the battlefield with a pair of binoculars he’d scrounged from somewhere.
Zhao Yunlan had just lit his twelfth cigarette when a hand reached out from nowhere, snuffed it out, and snatched it from his mouth. Zhao Yunlan froze, then slowly turned to see Shen Wei standing there hesitantly, looking as though he wanted to say something but didn’t know where to start.
Shen Wei looked frankly terrible. He was covered in blood. His glasses had long since fallen off somewhere. The hair on his forehead was a little long, brushing the bridge of his nose and nearly covering his eyes. All in all, he was a pathetic sight. He fidgeted with the cigarette he’d grabbed from Zhao Yunlan like a kid who was in trouble and was afraid to go home.
There was a long silence. Finally, Zhao Yunlan let out a resigned sigh and opened his arms. “Come here,” he said, and Shen Wei pulled him into a tight embrace.
Even a dog would go blind, seeing this, Lin Jing thought to himself. He pretended to not exist.
Having decided to see no evil, Lin Jing could only focus on the battle. It was like the various tribes and factions had come to a tacit understanding and were using the many reapers of the Netherworld as cannon fodder, pushing them to the forefront where Ghost Face and the gui could see them. By that point, more than half of the reapers had been injured or killed.
Nevertheless, even tiny shards of Chaos were still tremendously harmful. Immortals and gui alike had to avoid the sharp edge of its destruction. Occasionally, someone was unable to evade it and was swallowed silently, leaving behind not even a single hair. After all, wasn’t the whole point of Chaos to return everything to nothing?
As Lin Jing watched, the Qin’guang King was backed into a dire corner by a shard of Chaos. With a splash, he fell into the Wangchuan River, where his huge sleeves pulled him to the surface and kept him afloat.
A vast net emerged from the surface of the water, lifting the Qin’guang King into the air. Sopping wet, he scrambled and stumbled onto the shore, only to see the best of each tribe standing in the positions of Fuxi’s Bagua, setting up a huge array.
“Amitabha, what array is that?” Lin Jing murmured.
From behind him, Shen Wei’s voice said, “That’s Fuxi’s Bagua Net.”
Lin Jing was so startled that his hands shook, nearly dropping his binoculars.
Shen Wei kept talking. “The yao probably brought it. Legend says that Fuxi was born in the Eastern lands. Once he was elevated into a sage, Chiyou took over the Eastern lands, and after Chiyou came the wu and the yao. When Fuxi died, he left behind the Fuxi Bow and Bagua. The bow was taken by Houyi of the wu and eventually found its way into human hands. As for the Bagua Net, it’s probably a closely guarded secret of the yao. Unsurprisingly, each race has a hidden trump card.”
As the Bagua Net floated out of the water, the shard of Chaos seemed to retreat for the first time. Far overhead, the expression on Ghost Face’s mask twisted.
A sudden golden light exploded from the Bagua Net. Lin Jing, shocked, exclaimed, “That’s Buddha’s Golden Seal that we worship in the west… The legendary final treasure to suppress evil and monsters at the end of time!”
Before the sound of his voice had even begun to fade, the golden light flooded the entire Netherworld. The little lamps on the Huangquan Road, having been extinguished at some point, were lit once more. This time, their flames were far brighter, as if a dragon of fire were snaking along the Huangquan Road, waving its tail. The piece of Chaos, along with countless gui, was sucked into Fuxi’s Bagua Net in an instant.
Shen Wei sighed softly. “Everything has settled. Let’s go.”
From the moment Fuxi’s Bagua Net had appeared, the winners and losers had already been decided. The battle was over.
With a sound of acknowledgment, Lin Jing got to his feet. But a strange feeling still lurked in his heart—a sense that something was about to happen. Before leaving, he unthinkingly lifted his binoculars for a final look and got a crystal-clear view of the expression on Ghost Face’s mask: the expression of someone laughing even though he wanted to cry.
An instant later, the mask split in two. The halves fell, revealing the face that was a gloomy mirror of Shen Wei’s. Ghost Face’s robe billowed like a flag in the wind, despite the still air.
“Very well,” Lin Jing heard him say hoarsely. “You win. I can’t beat you. You don’t even deign to fight me… Very well.”
Shen Wei stopped.
“You and I were born exactly the same. I don’t understand how I was inferior to you. You’re the solitary, noble Soul-Executing Emissary, while I’m the King of the Gui everyone wants to kill. That’s all fine.” Ghost Face gave a guttural laugh. “I merely hate that you’re too despicable and cowardly to even fight me, instead choosing to humiliate me with these…these ants. You’ll regret this! You think you’ve won without dirtying your hands? Yes, you’ll regret this, my good brother.”
Breaking into gales of laughter, Ghost Face’s body suddenly grew vast—several dozens of meters, as tall as a mountain. From thousands of kilometers away, a muffled roar sounded deep beneath the ground. It rumbled like thunder as it rose to the surface.
Shen Wei’s expression suddenly changed.