Although riding flying swords allowed the two of them to move quickly, this method of transportation also made them a very visible target. Therefore, after turning two mountain bends, Yun Xie neatly put away his sword and leapt back down to earth with Jiang Xunyi. He did not even look at Jiang Xunyi, only silently started to walk forward.
He felt like a fire had been lit in his chest, the tongues of flame licking his heart nonstop as if roasting the flesh and blood, the sheer pain capable of driving a person mad.
“Jiang Xunyi.” Yun Xie hesitated for a long time before opening his mouth.
Behind him, Jiang Xunyi followed him silently, only letting out a “Mm.”
Yun Xie said: “You didn’t kill that woman just now, they framed you for her death, right?”
This system had not mentioned this matter, so Jiang Xunyi nodded without even needing to think about it.
Yun Xie abruptly stopped in his tracks and turned around, his expression extremely serious: “Then tell me they also framed you for what happened to Feng Qiu, you never did such a thing!”
“……” Jiang Xunyi stayed silent.
Yun Xie felt his patience had almost reached its limit. He gritted his teeth: “Fucking say something!”
Jiang Xunyi didn’t want to repeat that sentence again. That would make him feel like he had given in and succumbed. But since Yun Xie insisted on asking, he paused for a moment, helpless, and could only say lightly: “Yeah, if I didn’t do it, why would I admit to it?”
Yun Xie’s eyes immediately turned bloodshot. Jiang Xunyi had never expected such a dramatic reaction out of him, and he looked at Yun Xie with a mix of both shock and puzzlement.
Yun Xie’s voice quavered, but his expression was fierce: “Jiang Xunyi, you know what? I really want to kill you right now.”
“…” Jiang Xunyi truly could never have expected that Yun Xie actually liked Feng Qiu this much.
Yun Xie sucked in another breath and gritted his teeth: “But at the very thought of killing you, I’d rather first die myself. I… goddamn, fucking, shit!! What am I supposed to do with you!”
He didn’t know what was going on with himself——his hands seemed to be on the verge of escaping his own control, always trembling and moving towards the hilt of his sword. His breath stuck in his throat, yet he also feared he would accidentally hurt Jiang Xunyi just like last time at Xuan Li’s tomb. After venting out those sentences, he glared at Jiang Xunyi: “Stay away from me.”
Yun Xie had rarely, if ever, showed such a nasty attitude to him. In fact, this was the first time Jiang Xunyi had ever heard him swear so profanely. But uncharacteristically, Jiang Xunyi did not retort back either.
No matter the time or place, even after all his relatives and friends had betrayed him, only Yun Xie would still stand by his side without hesitation. He had originally come to this world for the sake of the protagonist, yet it seemed like Yun Xie was the one always accompanying him instead.
[Friendly Reminder: the task completion progress has reached 99%, may the host continue to work hard. ]
Hearing this voice again, Jiang Xunyi decided to cut the bullshit, and directly said: “Contact customer service, immediately.”
Thanks to his irrefutable attitude, he was able to quickly connect with customer service. The cold mechanical syllables were thus replaced with a gentle female voice, though Jiang Xunyi knew perfectly well this was just another piece of programmed artificially intelligent data. Still, this one was slightly more advanced, capable of actual communication.
“Greetings, I am happy to be of service to your honored self.”
Jiang Xunyi said: “I haven’t been very well lately, and want to ask you something.”
“Please go ahead and ask your question.”
——————————————————————————
Within the austere gloom of the Buddhist temple’s rear hall, Jiang Xunyi’s slender fingers clenched and he slammed the《Rising Clouds, Billowing Skies》book shut: “Old man, I have no wish to continue. Why did you show me this thing? More than anyone else, I know exactly what happened. Just tell me your purpose directly.”
Great Master He Deng shook his head: “Young master Jiang, if you don’t even dare to face your own past, what else can you do?”
In contrast to the seriousness of his words, his face displayed an extremely annoying grin. Jiang Xunyi frowned: “I don’t dare to face my past? No, I just find it vexing to see all over again!”
He paused for a moment, drumming the knuckle of his index finger on the table, before he calmed himself and continued: “I’ve already roughly understood what you want me to comprehend from this. Flipping through this book, I could vaguely feel Yun Xie’s thoughts and state of mind. There was a faint demonic energy hiding in his primordial spirit, which grew stronger and stronger over time. Then when his own emotions became irritable, the demonic energy absorbed those negative emotions, and he began showing signs of losing control at any moment. Why was this happening?”
Great Master He Deng pressed his palms together devoutly: “Amitabha, this old monk admires young master Jiang’s keen mind. However, don’t forget, you were the one who sealed one of Demon Sovereign Xuan Li’s mortal souls into Sect Leader Yun’s primordial spirit.”
Jiang Xunyi: “…….”
Great Master He Deng sighed: “When Sect Leader Yun’s emotions became too agitated, the Demon Sovereign’s mortal soul within him was able to amplify in strength and temporarily control his consciousness. It could be said that your true killer wasn’t Sect Leader Yun, but Demon Sovereign Xuan Li. In fact, everything about this matter can be traced back to your own actions.”
Although he didn’t say it out loud, the words “you reap what you sow” were written all over his face.
Jiang Xunyi was stifled for a moment. Now he finally understood why he didn’t get to go home after his death——because the system calculated that his killer was Demon Sovereign Xuan Li and not Yun Xie. Basically, he died for nothing.
Upon reaching this conclusion, his temper of course flared up: “But this is how the plot was supposed to progress! In the future, Yun Xie will refine Xuan Li’s mortal soul and thus achieve a great leap forward in his cultivation——Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go?”
Great Master He Deng said: “The plot is a dead thing, but people are living beings. You should understand that given Sect Leader Yun’s skill and personality, he originally should not have been susceptible to the influence of a single mortal soul. However, the obsession in his heart ran too deep. Love has never bowed to the control of humans, and even the plot could not have predicted Sect Leader Yun’s state of mind to change so much. ”
Jiang Xunyi only half understood what he was saying, and that half was enough to catch him off guard: “I really couldn’t tell that Yun Xie actually liked Qiu-shijie to this extent. If I’d known this earlier, I wouldn’t…. Sigh, that was a miscalculation on my part.”
Great Master He Deng: “……”
Jiang Xunyi silently turned around to stare at the book lying on the table, feeling as if the longstanding resentment in his heart was slowly shattering and crumbling. Shaking his head, he let out a sigh at the vicissitudes of life, though his lips curved up in a smile.
Looking back, Jiang Xunyi and Yun Xie could be said to bear equal responsibility and blame for everything that happened. But now that Jiang Xunyi knew killing him wasn’t Yun Xie’s intention, he felt everything he himself had done up until now was too ridiculous.
At this moment, while he was still lost in thought, a powerful force abruptly attacked him from behind. Caught off guard, Jiang Xunyi toppled forward, until he involuntarily fell into the golden light emanating from《Rising Clouds, Billowing Skies》.
In that brief instant, he only had enough time to silently yell in his heart: “He Deng, you conniving, backstabbing bald bastard!”
—————-
The world seemed to whirl before his eyes. When the spinning stopped, he had just regained consciousness when he heard a female voice tenderly say: “Please go ahead and ask your question.”
This was… the mountain cliffside he had been recalling through the book just now. Jiang Xunyi wanted to open his mouth to respond, but he discovered he had no control over his own body. It seemed that He Deng wanted him to re-experience these bygone happenings, but did not want him to change the course of events.
Jiang Xunyi heard his own voice going straight to the point: “Hey, the task you guys gave me is to ‘die by Yun Xie’s sword’, right? Then is it alright if I steal his sword and commit suicide?”
Customer Service: “……” It had likely never heard such blatant bargaining coming from a host before. For a long while, its mechanical mind was unable to react.
Jiang Xunyi pondered it over to himself: “Or the next time he takes out his sword, I could take advantage of that moment and throw myself onto the blade. Yun Xie has always treated me as a good brother, I can’t screw him over like this. If I made him stab me to death himself, it would likely be an unpleasant experience for him.”
At this thought, he couldn’t help but mockingly laugh out loud. He continued in his mind: “Anyway, you guys always want the best for the protagonist, isn’t that right?”
Hearing his own voice say such a thing, Jiang Xunyi couldn’t help but quietly sigh. He silently scolded his past self: “Idiot.”
The customer service finally spoke, that sweet voice seeming even more treacherous than before: “There is no need to worry so much. I guarantee that your task will be completed very smoothly, in no time at all.”
At this time, Jiang Xunyi caught a glimpse of a burst of glaringly bright blue light out of the corner of his eye. He abruptly looked back, just in time to see Yun Xie holding his sword, stabbing directly towards his chest——
While Jiang Xunyi was arguing and bargaining with customer service just now, Yun Xie had silently continued walking, growing more and more irritable with every step. He had no desire to talk to Jiang Xunyi at all, but there were no other distractions available at this time, so he had no choice but to look for something to talk about: “Where are we headed?”
Without giving Jiang Xunyi the opportunity to answer, he quickly continued: “Hey, I say, how about this? Since you’ve done such a wicked deed, you probably don’t need to return to Hidden Spirit. I heard that the far north is desolate and uninhabited, nothing but thousands of miles of ice and snow. We might as well go there and never come back out again, just the two of us. How’s that sound? Are you willing to give it a try?”
Jiang Xunyi didn’t answer. He was busy talking to customer service.
Yun Xie instantly raised his voice: “You’re not willing?!”
He heard Jiang Xunyi laugh mockingly behind him.
This laugh was like the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The scant remnants of Yun Xie’s reason and sanity were swept clean out of his mind. His long fingers finally grasped the hilt of the Bright River sword, and he heard a voice echoing from the depths of his own heart——I want to kill him, I’m going to kill him, I must kill him!
Kill him and he will never leave my side, will never fall in love with another person, will never make me angry again.
Kill him!
——On the other side, Jiang Xunyi could only watch history repeat itself, as that sword stabbed at his own chest without even a hint of hesitation. Even though he already knew the whole story, he couldn’t help but sigh.
In fact, from beginning to end, he had never feared death. He was only unwilling for things to end like this.
The sword aura, itself as sharp as a knife, scraped his face as it passed by. The edge whistled by his ear, until it slammed into the mountain cliff behind Jiang Xunyi, embedding itself in the stone. Jiang Xunyi abruptly felt his body lighten up, and he discovered he could now move around at will. Just as he was about to turn his head to look back in amazement, he had already been wrapped in a tight embrace.
At the critical moment, Yun Xie had redirected the Bright River sword and prevented it from hurting Jiang Xunyi. He then rushed over and hugged him without a single word.
Yun Xie’s entire body trembled, apparently still immersed in the fear of that moment, but he still embraced Jiang Xunyi tightly. His arms exerted immense effort, as if through this hug he could shield Jiang Xunyi from all that pain and suffering, and never be separated from Jiang Xunyi ever again.
Jiang Xunyi suddenly understood: the Yun Xie in front of him was no longer the Yun Xie of the past.
The instant he reached this epiphany, the surrounding scene seemed to transform into countless sparkling stars and fade away into thin air, dissipating like dust in the wind. In the blink of an eye, the two of them were already back inside that desolate temple.
Great Master He Deng beamed from ear to ear, pressing his palms together devoutly once more: “Amitabha, has Sect Master Yun hugged enough?”
The thickness of Yun Xie’s face was not inferior to that of a city wall. He didn’t move an inch, as sticky as ever: “Even if I hugged my entire life, it still wouldn’t be enough.”