Before Xiyu could finish speaking, Lu Zhixing cupped his face and swallowed the words he had yet to say.
Lu Zhixing’s kiss was fierce and urgent. He caught the tip of Xiyu’s tongue and entwined it with his own, sucking and teasing, as though he wanted to pour hundreds of thousands of years of love into this single kiss.
Salty, damp tears slid from the corners of Lu Zhixing’s eyes and rolled between their lips and teeth.
An overwhelming tide of love was woven into this kiss. The moment Lu Zhixing released Xiyu, he said almost reverently, “Thank you.”
Thank you, Master, for allowing him to experience the happiest moment of his life at the very end.
“Master, thank you for loving me.”
Lu Zhixing was laughing and crying at the same time, but the process of extracting the demonic aura from Xiyu’s body did not pause for even an instant.
“Zhixi,” Xiyu roared, “stop! Can’t you understand what I’m saying? I can come out alive, but you can’t! Do you want us to be separated?”
“No. I don’t want that.”
“Then stop,” Xiyu coaxed patiently. “Let me go in. You know I like obedient children.”
Lu Zhixing shook his head. “But I really can’t bear it. I can’t watch you… die before my eyes again. A thousand years ago, you stopped me from sacrificing myself to the arrow. This time, don’t stop me.”
He had no regrets left.
Lu Zhixing pressed his forehead against Xiyu’s. His fingertips caressed the side of Xiyu’s face with lingering affection. His voice was gentle yet firm.
“Master, if you can do it, then I can also follow in your footsteps and strip away these evil bones from my body, step by step.”
As soon as Lu Zhixing finished speaking, all the demonic aura in Xiyu’s body was transferred into Lu Zhixing’s.
Xiyu’s heart trembled. Overcome with fury and panic, he shouted harshly, “How dare you! I’ll hate you! I’ll hate you! Zhixi!!! How dare you disobey me? Do you want me to hate you? If you dare enter that formation, I will never forgive you!!!”
Lu Zhixing gazed at Xiyu with lingering affection.
“Master, wait for me.”
With that, Lu Zhixing pushed Xiyu away, turned around, and flew into the formation.
He left Xiyu with nothing but his resolute retreating figure.
Xiyu’s eyes nearly split with anguish as he screamed at the top of his lungs.
“No! No!!!”
“Zhixi!!!”
Lu Zhixing threw himself into the formation. The formation core, which had already been activated, closed the instant he entered.
Chen Yu stood embedded in the ground, and the black mist surrounding it began to settle.
“Lanxing!” Luo Cheng’an caught Xiyu, who could barely remain standing, and reached out to undo his Blazing Flame Shackles.
But if the Blazing Flame Shackles could be undone so easily, how could they possibly have restrained Xiyu?
Xiyu knelt on the ground, staring in terror and bewilderment at Lu Zhixing, who had become nothing more than a tiny speck within the Slaughtering Formation.
His fear seemed boundless. Intense pain began to spread through his body, as though he had returned to tens of millions of years ago.
Back then, he had entered the Slaughtering Formation with the resolve to die.
The so-called Slaughtering Formation had never existed to strip away demonic aura. This formation had been created for one purpose alone: slaughter.
To kill him, the demon.
The formation core, covered in runes, began to rotate. A heavenly thunderbolt struck down from the pitch-black sky.
The deafening explosion shattered the silence around Xiyu’s ears, and the pain throughout his body grew more and more intense.
Three hundred bolts of heavenly lightning, striking without pause, shattered and reassembled every bone and every shred of flesh. That was the true nature of the Slaughtering Formation.
Bolt after bolt of heavenly lightning descended from the sky, each one striking Lu Zhixing. Yet outside the formation, Xiyu felt as though he were suffering the very same pain.
Xiyu curled into himself, his body trembling violently. The veins on his forehead bulged. Overwhelmed by terror, he began to convulse and retch.
Luo Cheng’an was so anxious that sweat poured from his forehead. Unable to undo the Blazing Flame Shackles, he could only hold Xiyu and channel spiritual power into him, steadying his turbulent mind as pain overwhelmed him.
“He’ll come out,” Luo Cheng’an kept reassuring Xiyu. “You have to believe in him.”
Xiyu’s eyes were bloodshot from the agony. He braced one hand against the ground, breathing as heavily as a fish on the verge of death.
Would he come out?
No.
No one understood the Slaughtering Formation better than he did.
The three hundred bolts of heavenly lightning summoned within the formation had different purposes. The first two hundred and ninety-nine shattered the demonic aura. The final bolt was meant to destroy the divine bones.
Even with divine bones, he had barely endured it. How could Zhixi, who had none, possibly survive?
“He won’t be able to endure it…” Xiyu whimpered, crying out in utter desperation. “He has no divine bones. He won’t be able to withstand the final bolt of heavenly lightning…”
“He’ll die. He really will die!!!”
The words of comfort caught in Luo Cheng’an’s throat, impossible to utter. No one understood the dangers inside the Slaughtering Formation better than Xiyu, who had entered it himself. If Xiyu said Lu Zhixing could not endure it, then there truly was no hope.
Zhixi would die.
The very thing Luo Cheng’an had always wanted was about to happen.
He thought he ought to laugh, but he simply couldn’t. He looked at Xiyu, feeling somewhat dazed.
In his memory, Lanxing had always stood high above others, always spirited and confident. This was the first time Luo Cheng’an had ever seen him in such a wretched state.
That beautiful face was slightly contorted by pain. Sweat and tears covered it, while his usually clear and gentle eyes were filled with bloodshot veins.
After an unknown length of time, a dazzling light suddenly erupted in the sky. Countless bolts of heavenly lightning merged into one, illuminating all of Guihong Mountain.
The blinding light forced Luo Cheng’an to close his eyes. Immediately afterward, Xiyu’s piercing scream rang beside his ears.
Luo Cheng’an felt an immense force hurl him away. Panic surged through him. When he finally saw what was happening before him, he screamed hoarsely, “Lanxing, come back!!!”
At the instant the final bolt of heavenly lightning descended, Xiyu let out a furious roar. Overwhelming terror gave him strength from some unknown source. He broke through the Blazing Flame Shackles, shot into the air, and, at the very last moment, intercepted the final bolt of heavenly lightning that was heading toward Lu Zhixing.
“Lanxing!!!!”
Blood spilled from Xiyu’s mouth. The tearing pain throughout his body had become almost indistinguishable, and the severe blow to his soul left him unable to focus his vision.
Summoning every last ounce of strength, he flew toward Lu Zhixing and caught him in his arms.
Lu Zhixing was trapped upon a golden cross-shaped execution frame, his head hanging low. Almost all the blood had drained from his body, and golden spiritual power filled the gaps where his flesh had been torn apart.
Xiyu’s consciousness was fading, yet he clung tightly to Lu Zhixing, who resembled a rag doll with its body shattered.
The two of them fell together from the sky.
At the same time, the Slaughtering Formation dissipated.
……………….
A thousand years ago, after the war between gods and demons.
The Heavenly Realm had won a decisive victory. Every member of the demon race had been slaughtered, and from that day onward, no demons remained in the world. Yet for a hundred years, the Heavenly Realm held no celebrations whatsoever. All the immortals lived in fearful silence. No one dared to discuss the name “Lanxing,” and even Lanxing Hall was sealed away.
After the succession ceremony was hastily concluded, Huai Xi, now the Heavenly Emperor, appeared inside Lanxing Hall with a scroll in his hand. His face was dark as he looked at Zhixi, who was drunk beside the bed.
Zhixi wore a white robe, his long hair falling loosely around him, with a branch of fiery-red pear blossoms tucked behind his ear.
The luminous pearls inside Lanxing Hall were veiled with gauze, casting a dim, gentle glow. Everything remained just as it had been before. The only difference was that the master of the hall had already vanished like the wind, leaving behind only Zhixi, who was little more than a walking corpse.
Huai Xi let out a cold laugh and hurled the scroll at Zhixi.
“I restored your memories so you could remember him, not so you could waste all the fine wine he left behind!”
Zhixi was terribly drunk, his mind a muddled mess. The scroll struck his chest and fell to the floor, but he had no strength to lift a hand and pick it up. He merely raised his eyelids halfway and looked at Huai Xi before slowly lowering them again two seconds later.
He looked like a madman, Huai Xi thought.
He could have waited longer before restoring Zhixi’s memories. But his hatred ran too deep. How could he be the only one suffering? Zhixi had enjoyed all the kindness Lanxing had given him. How could Huai Xi allow Zhixi to remain carefree and ignorant, knowing nothing simply because his memories had been taken away?
With a turn of his hand, Huai Xi summoned a stream of icy spring water and poured it over Zhixi’s head.
The red pear blossoms looked even more vivid when soaked with water. Zhixi clicked his tongue in irritation and opened his eyes again. He looked up at Huai Xi.
Those long, narrow phoenix eyes were utterly empty. Even when they moved, they seemed as sluggish and heavy as wooden mechanisms, devoid of a soul.
“Are you sober yet?” Huai Xi looked down at Zhixi from above, his expression icy. “Do you still remember what I told you a hundred years ago?”
Zhixi’s brain seemed like a rusted machine. Several seconds after Huai Xi finished speaking, he finally showed some reaction. A faint glimmer appeared in his eyes, and his long-unused voice emerged hoarse and unpleasant, trembling almost imperceptibly.
“You found a way?!”
On the day his memories returned, he had already been preparing to destroy his own primordial spirit and follow his master into death. But Huai Xi had told him that there might be a way to recreate his master.
Lanxing Hall was unbearably cold without his master. Every day was agonizingly difficult to endure. Zhixi had waited in a daze for so long that he had nearly begun to suspect Huai Xi had been lying to him.
Yet he couldn’t bear to let go of that faint glimmer of hope.
More than anything, he believed Huai Xi would not deceive him. Huai Xi loved his master too, and just like Zhixi, he wanted Lanxing to live again.
If there were no way to recreate his master, Huai Xi would never have offered him this possibility, allowing him to cling to hope and barely survive for a hundred years.
A hundred years had passed. His master had been gone from him for a century…
Had he finally found a way!?
Huai Xi crouched down, picked up the scroll from the floor, and held it out to Zhixi. A cruel smile played across his face.
“This is the method for recreating him. Zhixi, whether you do it or not is entirely up to you.”
As though grasping at a lifeline, Zhixi snatched the scroll and hurriedly opened it.
Huai Xi watched as Zhixi’s expression grew increasingly rigid. His heart tightened, but soon he relaxed again.
No matter the price, as long as he could bring Lanxing back, Zhixi would do it.
Even if it meant becoming a demon.
Even though Lanxing had embarked on his path to slaughter the demon race, and even though the scroll stated that a High God could summon demonic aura through sheer obsession and obtain supreme power, then extract their divine bones to recreate flesh and blood—at the cost of Zhixi falling into demonic corruption.
Huai Xi was certain Zhixi would do it.
“If you refuse, I’ll extract your memories. That will count as fulfilling his final wish,” Huai Xi said in a low voice. “If you agree, I’ll protect you while you perform the ritual. And when the day comes that Lanxing kills you with his own hands, I’ll personally collect your corpse.”
“Whether you want him to live or not is entirely up to you.”
*
The power of the final bolt of heavenly lightning had nearly pierced Xiyu straight through. The last thing he remembered was Zhixi’s body, shattered beyond recognition.