So, it turned out that the most disgusting thing in this world was not ghosts or demons, but those cowardly, worthless beasts who wore human skins and hid in the crowd, willing to say and to do anything in the name of their own survival. At the end of everything, they would say, “I only wanted to live. I’m pitiful and powerless—I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Chu Xun had thought that the people he protected were helpless, good people. He was wrong. Now those beasts shed their human skins, revealing their ugly, snarling, bloodred faces… They had been so well hidden… So well hidden.
He no longer wanted to cry and bleed for those beasts in human clothing. They had been so sly, concealed so well amongst the good, kind people, their faces laughing at him, delighting in his powerlessness.
You have no choice but to save us. If you drop the barrier, we’ll take the people you want to save—the people actually grateful to you—together with us to hell.
You have no choice, however much it sickens you. You chose to be virtuous. You chose to be a good person.
Since that’s the choice you made, it’s your duty to sacrifice yourself to save everyone else. If you refuse, then you’re a swindler, a pretender, a fake, worse than a beast.
It was as if he could hear those people howling, could hear their shrill laughter:
You have no choice. You have no choice!
In that frenzied pandemonium, in the tempest of rain and wind, Chu Xun slowly lifted his head toward the heavens. Dawn was finally about to break.
The relentless downpour had washed the blood from the stone steps of the City God Temple. Chu Xun and those who had tried to protect him were tied up and walking toward the structure.
The scene was both sorrowful and laughable. The people had bound Chu Xun tightly and were smugly pleased that they had captured such a powerful person. They were completely unaware that Chu Xun could have easily turned the ropes to ash with but a single spell.
Yet he didn’t. Nor did he take down the Shangqing Barrier. Enough blood had been shed in Lin’an. He didn’t want any more innocent people to die purely for his own revenge.
So it was that the thin layer of light protected them all, both the thankless beasts who had turned on him and the people who stood sincerely by his side. They arrived at the temple, but the ghost king did not appear. Instead, they found a candle giving off black smoke that twisted into a dark silhouette.
“Why have you not dispelled the barrier?!” The moment the silhouette spied Chu Xun, that voice exploded with rage. “Dispel the barrier!”
“Over my dead body,” Chu Xun said serenely.
The black smoke let out a shrill shriek. “Chu Xun, you must be mad! You…you lot, kill him! Or I’ll take all your lives as soon as night comes!”
Daybreak. The first light of day illuminated the endless night. The ghost king, unable to maintain his form in sunlight, fled into the darkness. The candle emitting the black smoke flickered and went out.
Chu Xun pulled himself together. The City God Temple stood on high ground. From there, he could see the morning mist gently shrouding the mountains and rivers, hiding their scars from view, and for a moment, everything looked like it had in the days of old. It was a beautiful spring.
“Chu-gongzi, sorry.”
“It’s not that we’re cruel or heartless or anything, it’s just that the ghost king holds a grudge against you for ruining his eye… We have no other choice…”
“What’re you all still yammering for?! Don’t drag it out. We don’t want any surprises. I’ve got a family back there who want to live! Who’s more important, this one guy or all of us? The righteous put the people before the self—his words, not mine!”
Chu Wanning stood in the distance, looking at this person whose relation to him was unknown, his feelings complicated. A pair of hands suddenly covered his eyes.
“What are you doing?” Chu Wanning whispered.
“Not letting you watch.”
Chu Wanning paused. “Why?”
“You’ll be sad.”
Chu Wanning was quiet for a while, his eyelashes trembling against Mo Ran’s palms. “I won’t. I was the one who said it: every one of them is already two hundred years dead.”
Mo Ran sighed softly from behind. After a long pause, he said, “You little dummy. Then why are my palms wet?”
Chu Wanning didn’t know how much time passed, half an hour, two hours, or only a split second. Time blurred in the madness, the chaos.
When he opened his eyes again, the Shangqing Barrier had dissipated. Chu Xun lay in a crimson pool, surrounded by people and by ghosts—by demons wearing human skin, inhaling the scent of fresh blood.
Ecstasy and guilt. Calamity past, the rest of their lives now lay open. Agony and sin. The hearts of people were indistinguishable from those of beasts.
The air of the mortal realm smelled like death. Or perhaps this was hell. It was difficult to tell.
The crowd slowly dispersed. There was no reason to fear ghosts during the day, so they went to find food, to rest, to wait for the ghost king to return when night fell. He would inspect the body in the temple and reward them with the reunions he had promised with their deceased loved ones.
Eventually, only a dozen or so people remained in the temple, weeping in grief. The young woman from the brothel was there, as was the white-haired old woman. The young child, and his parents who had listened. A beggar, a scholar, a storyteller, the son of a once-wealthy family, a widow holding her infant son, a teacher, and a farmer. No one else.
As they wept over his body, the man lying dead in a pool of his own blood slowly opened his eyes.
“Gongzi!”
“Chu-gongzi!”
Mo Ran’s heart quivered. Unable to bear it, he said: “No…this is…”
This spell was a lost art in the modern age. He hadn’t expected to see it being used in an illusion.
“The Lingering Voice spell. He’s dead, but he used this spell on himself before he died.” Chu Wanning paused. “He still had matters yet unattended. Things he was worried about.”
Sure enough, Chu Xun’s eyes were blank, their pupils dilated, and his voice was flat as he spoke. “Demons and ghosts are treacherous; you must not believe their words. Without the Shangqing Barrier, they will overrun the city once night falls and slaughter at will. Please leave this place and head to Putuo.”
“Gongzi…”
“I have died and will be unable to accompany you. However, I have concentrated my entire lifetime’s worth of spiritual power in my spiritual core. Bring it, and the ghosts will be unable to approach you.”
They wept even more sorrowfully.
Mo Ran and Chu Wanning’s blood ran cold. His spiritual core. It was a crystalline formation within one’s heart…
Chu Xun’s body slowly lifted its hand, which had not yet gone stiff, and under the control of his spell, it grasped the knife buried in his chest to pull it out. Then—
“Gongzi!” The people around him cried out with grief, their voices twisted and hoarse, soaked with tears. “Gongzi, what are you doing?!”
With his own hands, Chu Xun ripped open the gash in his chest, dug into his flesh, and grabbed his no-longer beating heart. Slowly, inch by inch, he tore it out.
Blood dripped from the heart, which was enveloped in a golden-red flame. It was Chu Xun’s spiritual core, the last flare of light from a candle that had burned out.
“Take…it…” He lifted the flaming heart and held it out in front of him. “Take it…take…it…”
Droplets of blood fell only to become so many red haitang blossoms, flaring brilliantly as they drifted downward.
“The road ahead is long and unpredictable. My life ends here, and I can do no more. Please…please take care…of…yourselves…”
As the scene unfolded before Mo Ran’s eyes, he broke out in a cold sweat. He felt like thorns were digging into his back.
The scar… That scar! He had suddenly remembered that, on Chu Wanning’s chest, where his heart lay—there was a scar.
That same spot on Chu Wanning was extremely sensitive. How could Mo Ran forget it? Whenever he licked that pale scar as they lay entwined in bed, Chu Wanning’s usually impassive face would reveal a hint of the desire that he kept suppressed. That expression only stoked Mo Ran’s own desire even higher, so he had always particularly enjoyed humiliating the person beneath him in this way.
In his past life, he had never cared about Chu Wanning’s history and so had never asked how he’d acquired that scar, all the way until his death.
Now, in this life, he no longer had the right to ask.