Unable to restrain himself any longer, Daqing asked, “What exactly is going on?”
Kunlun-jun took two steps forward, then sat cross-legged beneath the Soul-Guarding Lamp. Stroking the black cat’s head, he said, “Don’t worry. The Lamp is still lit.”
Then, like an ancient statue of a god that had been silent for millennia, he shut his eyes as if meditating. Behind him, a pea-sized flame danced within the huge Soul-Guarding Lamp.
Guo Changcheng’s tiny stun baton lay quiet. He had lost all capacity for fear or terror. His mind was empty of everything but the sight of Chu Shuzhi falling. He made a desperate grab and caught Chu Shuzhi’s arm in both hands. Eyes squinched closed, he listened to the roar of the mountain wind whipping past.
But at that moment, Guo Changcheng realized with a start that he was no longer falling.
He immediately opened his eyes and saw that, because he’d knocked over the little fanny pack that Chu Shuzhi had given him, the soul bottles had tumbled out. When they’d knocked against the railings, their covers had all shattered. The souls he’d collected came pouring out all at once.
They didn’t take human form; instead, they were clusters of brilliant light. Seven or eight souls, including the girl from the bridge, came together and formed a huge net that stretched down from the bridge. It caught them both…just barely.
Shocked, Chu Shuzhi grabbed hold of Guo Changcheng and leaped back up to the bridge, pushing off from the net. His foot brushed the railing as he leaped again and landed at the end of the bridge. He looked back at the net of souls, complex emotions passing over his face. “Thank you,” he said. His voice was very low, and the words felt strange and unfamiliar in his mouth.
Next, after tossing Guo Changcheng into the cave behind him, he flung twelve talismans all at once. They hurtled toward the red-eyed gui, and divine thunder heeded the call, transforming the bridge into a high-voltage power grid.
The net of souls changed shape again, becoming a stream of lights that flew in a circle around Guo Changcheng.
A pale orange glow, like the gentlest flame, suddenly enveloped the unassuming Guo Changcheng. The souls around him seemed to sense something; they couldn’t help but draw closer. Something like a voice stirred in Guo Changcheng’s head, and words came spilling out of his mouth: “G-guard the souls of the living, bring peace to the hearts of the dead…”
From somewhere distant, a ray of light pierced all the darkness in the Mortal Realm. Weak at first, it gradually began to spread, covering the entire earth as though it had caught fire.
With a shriek, the red-eyed gui covered its eyes. It stumbled back several steps before it twisted and shriveled, melting to nothing under that brilliant light.
Chu Shuzhi turned to look at Guo Changcheng. For a moment, he had the feeling that Guo Changcheng himself had become a flame, miraculously flickering in perfect time with the fire covering the earth. Somewhat apprehensive, the Corpse King strode over to him. When he cautiously tried to reach into the flames surrounding Guo Changcheng, he felt only a peculiar warmth rather than scorching heat.
Unable to see the flames, Guo Changcheng kept chanting along with the voice in his heart. The second half flowed from his lips. “…Atone for crimes done in life, and…complete the unfinished cycle.”
His voice overlapped with something within the vast earth, creating an unending resonance and echo. Chu Shuzhi, sensing something, looked up to see all the souls they hadn’t found in the resort the previous night float up the mountain. One by one, they stopped before Guo Changcheng.
Guo Changcheng’s notebook contained detailed descriptions of all the missing people in their families’ words. Lining up, each soul found their own page. Some took up the pen and added “To so and so” on their page; others, upon laying eyes on their own names in that lopsided, childish writing, smiled peacefully, as though they had finally let go.
In the end, one at a time, they vanished into thin air and became countless points of light that flew skyward.
A sound like spring thunder rumbled in the distance. Where the sky had been covered in dark clouds, a tiny glimpse of white shone through. To the south, two vast trees burst up out of the ground. They towered over houses, then over skyscrapers, eventually dwarfing even mountains as they reached up into the sky.
Finally, only one of the souls that had gathered around Guo Changcheng remained. Touching down on the ground, it assumed the likeness of Feng Dawei, the delivery driver.
“Ge!” he called out to Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng with excitement. “Thank you, guys. There really is a next life—I believe it now. Next time I’m reborn, I want to be my parents’ son again, and my brother’s brother. I want to live a good life and do lots of wonderful things to make up for this life.”
With every word, Feng Dawei became more and more transparent. Finally, he splintered into shards of light and floated off into the endless Reincarnation Cycle.
The light building on Guo Changcheng had become blinding in its radiance. Now it suddenly broke away from him, soaring off like a meteor.
The Mountain God of the Great Wild, seated beneath the Soul-Guarding Lamp, seemed to sense something. His eyes snapped open as a ball of fire, bright as the morning sun, flew into the lamp. The flame within, which had been only the size of a pea, flared and shot up, now hundreds of meters tall.
Kunlun-jun got to his feet and pressed his hands against the Soul-Guarding Lamp. They glowed orange in the firelight. With his back to everyone, he stared into the flame. A trace of apprehension and anticipation flickered across his impassive face.
Gradually, a figure took shape in the flames and tumbled out into Kunlun-jun’s embrace. He wasn’t heavy, but catching him seemed to take all of Kunlun-jun’s strength, causing the Mountain God to stumble. He and the person in his arms fell to the ground.
“Shen-laoshi!” Lin Jing yelped quietly, shocked.
The calm facade Kunlun-jun had worked so hard to maintain finally cracked. He held Shen Wei so tightly that his knuckles whitened.
Shen Wei suddenly began coughing as if he were choking. He reflexively angled his head to the side, leaning against Kunlun-jun. In the wake of a soft exhalation, tiny flames blazed at his brow and both shoulders, then disappeared into his body.
“Was…was that soul fire…? But how could the Chaos King of the Gui have soul fire?” asked Shennong’s mortar, baffled. “Has a soulless being of great evil truly gained three ethereal and seven corporeal souls somehow? Could a gui have a soul?”
“The King of the Gui has become a god, and thus the gui now have souls.” Kunlun-jun pressed a soft kiss to Shen Wei’s brow. “Shennong’s wish has finally come true. Thousands of years after his death, he has finally completed the true Reincarnation Cycle he always wanted.”
“H-how…can that be possible…?” Shennong’s mortar said in disbelief. “He… Didn’t the Emissary sacrifice himself to the Soul-Guarding Lamp?”
Shen Wei’s right hand was clenched tight, as though holding on to something. Kunlun-jun, sensing something familiar, gently took hold of his fist. Slowly, Shen Wei’s fingers relaxed. A golden calming charm flew up from his palm, hovering before Kunlun-jun’s eyes.
A sudden smile of recognition broke across Kunlun-jun’s face. He had personally drawn that charm on the back of Shen Wei’s hand when they’d first met in this life.
The calming charm flew into the Soul-Guarding Lamp, which slowly started to rise. Eventually it disappeared into the great south.
The new Four Pillars were now in place.
“You were the one constantly reminding me of Shennong’s words,” Kunlun-jun said, “and you were also the one who found the Lamp’s true wick.” Ever so carefully, he picked Shen Wei up in his arms. “So how do you not understand now?”
“The…the true wick…?”
“That kid, Guo Changcheng. He’s the wick reincarnated.” Kunlun-jun’s voice was very low. “What’s burning within the Soul-Guarding Lamp right now is all the merits earned by the wick over hundreds of lifetimes and reincarnations. That’s why the Lamp returned Shen Wei to me.”
As he spoke those words, the canopy of the tree that had grown taller than the mountains themselves turned into millions of water droplets, which dispersed to every corner of the earth. The ground that had been devastated by the destruction of the Great Seal was restored to how it had been; fresh green buds, so easily overlooked in early spring, burst from the soil. The mortals on earth would never even remember that such a dark calamity had ever occurred.
At last, the first ray of light pierced the dark clouds. A new day had dawned.