Jiang Fuli looked disheveled, but his expression was open and composed. Although his face was still the same face of the shrewd merchant, Apothecary Jiang, his bearing was completely different from before. Even the expression between his brows and eyes seemed to belong to an entirely different person.
At this moment, he appeared gentle, calm, and steadfast, unlike the Apothecary Jiang of the past.
The Apothecary Jiang of old had often given people another kind of feeling—as though, apart from money and possessions, he had never known what he wanted or what he cared about.
The Jiang Fuli of the past had been a heartless, soulless puppet.
But the man who had returned today seemed as though the puppet had finally called back the soul it had lost.
Jiang Fuli swept the room with his one remaining beautiful eye. His gaze paused briefly on Murong Lian and Murong Meng Ze in turn before finally settling on Mo Xi.
He was silent for a moment before saying quietly, “Lord Xihe, I have something important to discuss with you. I would trouble you to step aside with me for a private conversation.”
Jiang Fuli’s words were very polite, yet they inexplicably carried a sense of pressure.
Everyone in the room had sensed the sudden change in Jiang Fuli’s personality. Thus, when they looked toward Mo Xi, they could not help but show a little more concern.
Murong Lian took a fierce sip of Fusheng Ruomeng. Suddenly, he raised a hand and grabbed Mo Xi, who was preparing to leave with Jiang Fuli.
“Wait.”
Then, with those peach-blossom eyes of his, the whites showing around his pupils, he narrowed his gaze at Jiang Fuli.
“…Are you really Apothecary Jiang, or are you another fake?”
“You were seven years old when you refused to accept that you were shorter than Gu Mang. You stuffed a thick stack of silk paper into your shoes, only to accidentally trip because of it and crack your head open. You had to get it stitched—”
“Stop, stop, stop!”
Murong Lian looked embarrassed but stubbornly held his ground.
“Fine! I know you’re real, all right?!”
With that, he awkwardly released Mo Xi, rolled his eyes, and muttered a curse under his breath.
Mo Xi and Jiang Fuli went to the warm chamber in a side hall.
The attendants were dismissed, leaving no one else inside.
Jiang Fuli waved his hand, and star-like points of light immediately descended around the warm chamber, forming a protective barrier.
But the instant Mo Xi saw that barrier, he stopped in his tracks.
“…The Sacred Spirit Barrier, which was already lost a hundred years ago…”
Mo Xi stared at Jiang Fuli’s thin profile.
The man’s expression was resolute, yet he looked utterly haggard.
Su Yurou’s murmured words from earlier—“Palace Master”—still echoed in his ears.
A wildly unbelievable thought suddenly exploded in Mo Xi’s mind.
He could not help asking,
“—Who exactly are you?”
Jiang Fuli said nothing. He sat down at the table.
The room was very quiet. The radiance of the Sacred Spirit Barrier continued to flow around them.
Mo Xi could hear the sound of his own heartbeat.
After a long while, he asked tentatively,
“…Palace Master Shen?”
Jiang Fuli raised his eyes.
That one intact, glass-colored almond-shaped eye was remarkably calm.
“I am not.”
“…”
“Shen Tang died hundreds of years ago. I am merely Jiang Fuli.”
He paused before continuing, “As for Marshal Gu, I have already heard what happened.”
The name Gu Mang was like a needle, piercing Mo Xi’s already shattered heart.
Mo Xi suddenly lowered his long lashes, which trembled slightly as they shielded his eyes.
Jiang Fuli said, “He is still very young. He has not received the respect he deserves, nor has he obtained the peace he should have had. He and Shen Tang are actually different… Both of them sacrificed themselves to the demon beast, but Gu Shuai still had desires and attachments in this world.”
When he said the word attachments, he looked deeply at Mo Xi.
Then he continued,
“Shen Tang did not.”
“…”
“At the moment Shen Tang sacrificed himself to the demon beast, his heart had already turned to ashes. He had nothing left to yearn for. Shen Tang sought death, while Gu Mang sought life.”
Jiang Fuli shook his head.
“I am sorry. Things should never have turned out this way.”
Mo Xi frowned slightly.
“But you… if you aren’t Shen Tang, then how would you know what Shen Tang was thinking at the time?”
As expected, Jiang Fuli fell silent.
After a long while, he sighed.
“If I were to explain this matter, it would be extremely complicated.”
“I would hear the details.”
Jiang Fuli paused, seemingly considering how to begin.
Finally, he said, “When I treated Gu Mang’s injuries before, I empathized with a portion of his memories. I saw that you encountered a woman named Wuyan on Bat Island.”
“She was a female demon who yearned for Shen Tang…”
“That’s right,” Jiang Fuli said. “But after seeing your memories, I always felt as though I had seen her somewhere before.”
Jiang Fuli poured two cups of strong tea. He pushed one toward Mo Xi on the opposite side of the table and slowly drank from the other.
Only then did Mo Xi notice that the area covered by the white gauze was sunken inward. There was no rounded shape of an eyeball beneath it.
Jiang Fuli had actually lost his left eye completely.
Yet he seemed completely unconcerned, as though he did not care in the slightest about his health or his body.
He said calmly, “I have been in Chonghua for so many years. Many people have asked me which nation I am from and what happened in my past, but I have never answered. You all simply thought I was cold and unwilling to speak. That wasn’t actually the reason.”
He paused, then gave a faint, bitter smile and shook his head.
“I truly didn’t know who I was.”
“Almost all the memories I possess begin from when Yu Rou and I were wandering from place to place. She told me that I had been sick and forgotten everything from my past, so I was muddle-headed and believed everything she told me.
“As for my identity, where I came from, my relatives… everything was told to me by Yu Rou. For some inexplicable reason, I gradually grew tired of it all. Instinctively, I rejected it and never had any desire to investigate further.”
“But over these past few years… I began to dream.
“In my dreams, I would always see certain people and events repeating themselves. They were fragmented and had no connection whatsoever. Yu Rou also always remained silent. Whenever I asked her anything, she would say she didn’t know, and I never investigated any further…
“Until not long ago, when I treated Gu Mang and saw his memories of Bat Island.
“The Wuyan he saw looked exactly like a young woman I had seen in my dreams.”
Jiang Fuli closed his eyes briefly.
“At that time, I thought that if I went to meet Wuyan, perhaps I could finally learn what kind of person I had been in the past.”
Mo Xi remembered how Jiang Fuli had clearly seemed lost in thought after treating Gu Mang’s illness.
Only now did he understand that this had been the reason.
Mo Xi asked, “So when you wandered from place to place during this period, you actually went to Bat Island?”
“It was only one of the places I visited. I went to other places as well. …Do you remember the island where Wuyan first met Shen Tang, the one where it was like spring all year round?”
Mo Xi nodded.
“I found that place too.
“That island is actually a piece of land carried upon the back of a Black Tortoise. That Black Tortoise once had an alliance with Shen Tang’s ancestor, and it guarded a broken branch of the ancient Divine Tree of the Flame Emperor.”
Mo Xi’s eyes abruptly widened.
“The Divine Tree of the Flame Emperor… the very first tree in the human world… the King of All Trees?”
“Yes,” Jiang Fuli said. “The Divine Tree of the Flame Emperor, the King of All Trees. Upon a single tree grew every flower that existed in the mortal world.
“And one section of its crabapple wood was lost in the mortal realm for some reason. By a stroke of fate, it was obtained by Shen Tang’s ancestor more than a thousand years ago.”
“Shen Tang’s family knew very well that the divine tree was an unparalleled treasure of immense power. If others learned of its existence, countless people would rush to seize it for themselves.
“The Shen family had always despised warfare, so they sealed that section of divine crabapple wood away on Black Tortoise Island and never spoke of it to the outside world.
“But the divine tree possessed a spirit. To keep its heart peaceful and pure, and prevent it from being disturbed by foul and evil energies, the head of the family would go to the island every year and stay there for a month, playing the qin for it and cultivating its spirit.”
At this point, Mo Xi began to understand.
Back then, Wuyan had seen the island’s dense immortal aura, with flowers flying through the air all year round and spring prevailing in every season, so she had mistakenly believed that it was because of Shen Tang.
In reality, she had completely misunderstood.
That immortal aura had not been produced because of Shen Tang.
It was because of the broken branch of the ancient divine tree that Shen Tang guarded.
“…”
Mo Xi could not help asking, “Shen Tang has been dead for a hundred years, and his family was almost completely wiped out in that vicious battle with Hua Po’an back then. There should have been no one to visit that immortal island for the past hundred years.
“So when you went there, what did you see? Is the divine tree still there?”
“It is,” Jiang Fuli said.
“When I found Black Tortoise Island, I saw that the vegetation had already grown luxuriantly, with flowers blooming everywhere.
“After several hundred years, the broken crabapple branch had transformed the place into a region overflowing with the spirit of the divine tree.
“However, I observed that the crabapple tree was already showing signs of developing its own consciousness.
“I played for it again the piece Shen Tang had played a hundred years ago. It seemed delighted by the elegant music, causing all the flowers on the island to bloom.
“I feel that perhaps after several more centuries, even the Black Tortoise’s seal will no longer be able to contain it. Perhaps it will willingly descend into the vast sea again and venture into the mortal world on its own, just to see it for itself.”
After Jiang Fuli finished speaking, he smiled.
“Although I am curious about what fate awaits it in the future, once several hundred years have passed, the question of whether this piece of divine wood remains or leaves will no longer be something a mere mortal like me can influence.”
Mo Xi silently listened until, suddenly, he asked,
“Apothecary Jiang, why do you know so much about the Shen family?”
“…”
“…Are you truly not Palace Master Shen?”
Jiang Fuli set down his cup and sighed softly.
“My memories were restored because Wuyan found a way to help me recover them. After I recovered them, I also managed to resolve the knot in her heart.
“Yes, I am indeed not Shen Tang.
“But throughout these several hundred years, there has always been someone who wanted me to become Shen Tang completely.”
Mo Xi froze.
“Who?”
Jiang Fuli raised his eyes.
Three words fell from his thin lips.
“Hua Po’an.”
Seeing Mo Xi’s expression, Jiang Fuli seemed to give a bitter smile.
“Absurd, isn’t it? I think so too.
“I possess all of Shen Tang’s memories, even his emotions, yet I know that I am not him.”
“Then you are…”
“I am Shen Tang’s cousin.
“As for my own name…”
Jiang Fuli said calmly, “Over these several hundred years in the mortal world, Hua Po’an called me Shen Tang, while Yu Rou called me Jiang Fuli.
“I wandered through so many years in a daze that I no longer remember my true name.
“I only know that I am another version of him that Hua Po’an forcibly created because he could not bear to let Shen Tang die.
“My body contains Shen Tang’s memories, remnants of his soul, his spells, and his past.”
His voice was low and gentle, without much emotion, yet somehow it made every word especially sorrowful.
Jiang Fuli said, “I am merely a puppet.
“No better than the bamboo warrior created by Murong Chuyi or the clay figure molded by Jiang Yexue.”
Although Mo Xi was deeply shocked, he could not help feeling pity for him.
“Apothecary Jiang…”
Yet he did not know what words of comfort he could offer.
Jiang Fuli said, “You don’t need to comfort me. You are already grieving enough yourself.
“Others may not be able to see it, but I understand.
“I hurried back today not because I wanted to find someone to tell them about my own past.
“I came to offer a way to defeat our enemy.
“Since Hua Po’an regards me as Shen Tang, then in this second battle, a hundred years later, I will likewise not be absent.”
Mo Xi’s heart trembled.
“You have a way to stop the blood pool from spreading?”
“There is indeed one method. No one has ever tried it before, and I have no assurance of success. I can only give it a try,” Jiang Fuli said.
“However, while I was on Black Tortoise Island, I performed a divination. The immortal oracle said that as long as you, Lord Xihe, do this one thing, everything can change—even life and death.”
At the last phrase, Mo Xi froze.
Then he reacted.
“Even life and death…”
“That’s right.”
A light suddenly flashed in Mo Xi’s eyes, as though a flame had been struck into brilliance.
What… did that mean?
Although it seemed absurd, his blood still surged. His fingers trembled slightly as they clenched tightly into his palm.
“Please enlighten me, Apothecary.”
Jiang Fuli stood and leaned against the window, glancing outside.
By now, the Blood Demon Beast’s blood pool had already spread into the inner city, slowly continuing to devour this imperial capital.
He turned around and took a black, obsidian-like crystal from his Qiankun pouch, placing it on the table.
“The Shen family possesses two hidden treasures of the world.
“One is the broken branch of the divine tree I mentioned earlier.
“The other is this crystal.
“This is the Shen family’s most secret and most important treasure.
“It is also the only way to break the great calamity facing Chonghua.”
Jiang Fuli paused before saying,
“There is still time. Before I let you use it, I want to explain clearly the piece of history that I know.”
“—A piece of history connected to Hua Po’an.”