“Mo Xi, we’re going home.”
That quiet call, carrying the finality of dust settling, sent Mo Xi into sleep, only for him to awaken from it once more.
He did not know how much time had passed when he heard the soft patter of rain. Deep within the curtain of rain, an ethereal, hazy voice seemed to be humming a ballad. The sound of the rain was so heavy that he could not make out exactly what the mist-like voice was singing. He only felt that the melody was vast and mournful, strange and otherworldly, as though it had come from the distant beginning of heaven and earth.
“Return… when will you return…”
Those were the only fragments of the song he could make out.
His eyelashes trembled lightly, and he slowly opened his eyes.
Endless cold mist surrounded him. Fine threads of rain fell from the curved heavens. They landed on his face, yet he felt no dampness; the droplets seemed to vanish into nothingness the instant they touched his skin.
Everything between heaven and earth swayed unsteadily.
He took a moment to collect himself.
Was this the world after death?
Then he realized that he was lying in a shabby little boat.
Someone was sitting by the side of the boat, resting his chin on his hand as he gazed toward the distant reeds.
The moment Mo Xi saw his face clearly, he abruptly sat upright, feeling his blood surge backward.
“Gu Mang?!”
Gu Mang turned at the sound of his voice and smiled.
“You’re awake.”
For a moment, Mo Xi felt as though he had been struck with tremendous force. The pain in his chest turned into heat behind his eyes, and countless emotions surged into his throat, yet he could not utter a single word.
He sat in that little boat, wanting to see everything around him clearly, but he could not bear to let his gaze leave Gu Mang’s face even for an instant.
Perhaps sensing the turmoil in his heart, Gu Mang stood from the bow, came over, and sat down beside him. Then he took Mo Xi’s hand.
Mo Xi’s heart trembled violently, and he lowered his lashes.
Gu Mang reached out and embraced him.
“It’s okay. It’s all over.”
It was all over.
Mo Xi had suffered too much, endured too many hardships that neither of them could ever have anticipated.
Now, it was all over.
Mo Xi hugged him tightly in return. Mist and rain blurred the river around them until nothing could be seen clearly. The only thing that was real was the person in front of him—someone he could touch, someone who could accompany him.
Mo Xi choked out, “You’re still alive…”
Gu Mang released him and gently patted his shoulder, giving a bitter smile.
“Still alive. But once this boat reaches the end, it’ll be time to go.”
“This is…”
“This is the Soul River leading to the Ghost Realm,” Gu Mang said. “The two of us have already…”
He did not finish.
But Mo Xi already understood what he meant.
One of them had sacrificed himself to the Demon Pool; the other had chosen to perish together with the Blood Demon Beast’s undying heart.
In the end, both had traveled to the underworld and met again on this silent, deep-flowing Soul River.
Mo Xi slowly settled down from his initial daze and excitement.
Looking into Gu Mang’s blue eyes, a deep sorrow gradually spread through his heart.
Yes.
They were both already dead.
Only Gu Mang still had the chance to reincarnate.
As for himself…
He lowered his eyes, concealing the secret that had flashed through them.
He would ultimately be just as the god of the Reverse Stone had said: his soul would eventually scatter completely, forever beyond the cycle of reincarnation.
But he did not want Gu Mang to know this secret.
Both of their lives had already reached their final stretch. Being able to meet again was already heaven showing them mercy.
He did not want their final moments together to be filled with sorrow.
Besides, all this time, it had always been Gu Mang who concealed his own secret in exchange for Mo Xi’s peace.
This time…
Mo Xi thought, it was his turn to comfort him.
He wanted Gu Mang to reincarnate without any regrets, to have a carefree and worry-free life.
“I’m sorry. I dragged you here with me.”
Gu Mang looked at Mo Xi, his expression filled with pain.
“In the end… I still couldn’t protect you.”
Mo Xi smiled faintly. His voice was low and slightly hoarse.
“I chose this myself.”
The river beneath their boat gently lapped against the hull, breaking into tiny waves.
“Gu Mang, I should thank you. If it hadn’t been for you, perhaps after the Mo family fell into decline, I would have become someone like Murong Chen or Hua Po’an—ruthless, ambitious, and consumed by hatred. Thank you. You saved me.”
Gu Mang smiled and reached out to touch his face.
“You never would have. It wasn’t me who saved you. I saw your kindness, your heart, a long time ago. That’s why I never cared about your family background. That’s why I was willing to pay attention to you, to accompany you.”
He paused.
The light in his blue eyes grew slightly moist, and his voice softened.
Finally, he gently rested his forehead against Mo Xi’s.
“To love you.”
Neither of them spoke again.
Fine rain descended over the Soul River, cloaking them in a thin, hazy glow.
On this light boat sailing toward the destination of the dead, these two people who had loved each other for half their lives yet had never been able to truly accompany one another finally intertwined their fingers, casting aside everything else and speaking the words they had kept buried in their hearts.
“Mo Xi, I’ve always liked you.”
“So have I.”
“I’ve always wanted to be with you.”
A conversation from many years ago resurfaced once again on the road to the underworld.
Mo Xi smiled.
And as he smiled, the sound of his voice grew wet with bitterness.
“So have I.”
“Only you.”
“Mm.”
“In every life from now on, if I can still have you, that would be wonderful.”
This time, Mo Xi did not answer.
He knew that he would not be reincarnated.
But looking into Gu Mang’s clear, luminous eyes, even as immense pain surged through his heart, there was also an overwhelming tenderness and reluctance to let go.
After a long moment, with a hint of nasality in his voice, he smiled softly and gazed into Gu Mang’s eyes.
“…We will.”
I’m sorry.
In this entire life, I have almost never lied to you.
But this last time, I have to.
Gu Mang, I want you to be well.
“We’ll meet again.”
The boat continued forward.
The mist was thick, shimmering with a hazy light.
Suddenly, they heard noisy voices coming from deep within the fog.
Mo Xi froze.
But Gu Mang said, “Don’t worry. I heard them earlier too. They’re not anything bad. Look carefully into the mist…”
Mo Xi turned his head.
Within the fog, shadows of other boats flickered indistinctly.
Looking closely, he realized that countless boats stretched across the vast, boundless surface of the Soul River.
On every boat sat a soldier wearing the old battle armor of Chonghua.
They were dressed in the same uniforms that Gu Mang’s troops had worn many years ago, when he had been their commander.
Gradually, Mo Xi realized that those faces were so familiar.
They were stained with blood.
Some were still young, even barely more than children.
They gazed toward the direction from which they had come, solemnity shining in their eyes.
Then Mo Xi heard the deep rumble of golden drums rolling through the fog.
He heard the solemn, low military anthem of Chonghua echoing across the Soul River.
The voices of tens of thousands converged like rivers flowing into the sea, drowning out the ethereal voices singing the dead toward their final resting place among the reeds.
“Once, young men took up their swords and marched away,
Their blood sank into the sands, their bones unable to return.
Last year, these bodies still wore faces like jade;
Only last night, these lips still laughed and spoke.
“You left the moon’s heart, and I shall reflect it.
You left behind your mighty spirit, and I shall carry it on.
The day heroic souls return to their homeland,
There will be no place in this mortal world without green mountains.”
The instant Mo Xi recognized the familiar ballad, he could no longer hold back his tears.
But as they fell into the wind, they vanished without a trace, just like the rain on the road to the underworld.
“This boat has been anchored here for a long time,” Gu Mang said softly. “After the Yellow Springs rain falls and the mist between lives rises, the phantoms of the people we could never let go of appear in the fog as they passed through here many years ago.”
“…”
“I saw those brothers who died at Fengming Mountain. I saw Lu Zhanxing, too. When Zhanxing left, he couldn’t rest easy. He sat on the deck, constantly sticking his head out and peering into the river.”
Gu Mang gave a hoarse, quiet laugh.
“I saw Aunt Lin, too… my mother… She kept resting her chin on her hand and looking back at the Soul River stretching into the distance. I know she was always thinking about me…”
As he spoke, silent tears slipped down his face.
He hurriedly wiped them away.
With a forced smile, he said, “I saw my cousin, too. My cousin… my cousin…”
He wanted to say something about Murong Chuyi, but he could not get the words out.
His entire life had been too bitter.
Family had left him, and friends had scattered.
Only on the road to the underworld could he finally reunite with their phantoms.
“Mo Xi, I saw them again. I never thought I’d be able to see them one last time. I…”
Mo Xi heard the slight tremor in Gu Mang’s voice and turned toward him.
Gu Mang lowered his eyes, but they were red.
“I was happy.”
Those phantoms of his comrades in the cold mist, those heroic souls who had died at Fengming Mountain, sang the empire’s anthem for its fallen heroes, casting a solemn grandeur over the bleak, magnificent river.
Mo Xi reached out and pulled Gu Mang into his arms.
He raised his head and gazed at the crimson sky.
“It’s all right. I’ll accompany you on the final road.”
The rain gradually began to stop.
A faint golden sunlight filtered through the hazy clouds, dispelling some of the cold from the Soul River.
Mo Xi murmured,
“I’ll stay with you, Gu Mang. We still have our next life. We still have a future…”
He closed his eyes, his Adam’s apple moving.
So this was what it felt like to carry such a heavy secret in one’s heart, to comfort another person, to accompany another person, hoping that person could be happy without ever knowing the truth.
He had experienced it for only such a short while, yet already felt as though his very insides were being twisted by knives.
Gu Mang, however, had endured it for nearly ten years.
More than three thousand days and nights.
Mo Xi felt an unbearable ache in his heart.
He lowered his head and repeatedly kissed Gu Mang’s hair at his forehead.
They did not say anything more.
Perhaps nothing else needed to be said.
As long as they could accompany each other, as long as they could hold each other’s hands tightly, that was already enough.
Their wishes and desires had never been many.
The two continued onward together.
Yet along the journey, they suddenly saw another figure standing at the bow of a boat, his hands clasped behind his back.
Mo Xi froze.
His heart pounded like a drum, and the words escaped his lips before he could stop them.
“Father—?!”
The reflection cast by the mist and waters of the Yellow Springs was actually the phantom of Mo Qingchi.
At last, Mo Xi saw what Mo Qingchi had looked like when he left the mortal world many years ago.
Mo Qingchi looked just as handsome and dignified as he did in Mo Xi’s memories, just as kind.
Like Gu Mang’s mother, he kept looking back toward the road he had traveled.
But his expression was calmer and more peaceful, though there remained a trace of worry for the child he had left behind in the mortal world—the little fireball that was his son.
Still, he knew that the spiritual form of the immortal beast he had left behind would protect his little Mo Xi.
“I only hope you’ll walk a path that leaves you with no regrets…”
Mo Qingchi sighed deeply and murmured to himself.
“Father… Father…”
Mo Xi came back to himself, choking as he called out to him.
The seven-year-old little fireball had once waited in vain for his father to come home.
And now, at last, he saw him again.
Whether by coincidence or for some other reason, in the end, Mo Qingchi’s phantom actually turned toward the place where Mo Xi and Gu Mang’s boat was traveling.
Across the intertwining currents of time, he gave a faint smile.
“Daddy can’t accompany you anymore, little fireball. But Daddy will always protect you…”
Mo Xi stared at him in a daze.
Perhaps that year, when Mo Qingchi’s boat passed through this place, he too had encountered the cold mist of the Yellow Springs.
Perhaps he had learned that when the mist arose, the dead could see the phantoms of those they had loved who had passed away before them.
So that was why… why he had…
The boat moved onward.
Suddenly, it passed through a waterfall of the Yellow Springs.
Everything abruptly became peaceful.
“Daddy!!”
Mo Xi choked out the cry.
Amid the thunderous roar of the waterfall, Mo Qingchi’s phantom disappeared.
Behind the curtain of the waterfall, heaven and earth transformed.
The cold mist dissipated.
Everything vanished.
Gu Mang comforted him.
Then, suddenly, something caught his peripheral vision.
Gu Mang’s entire body stiffened.
Mo Xi sensed something was wrong and turned back from his grief.
Gu Mang murmured,
“We’ve reached the road to the underworld…”
Ahead of their boat, they saw a ferry landing overgrown with withered grass.
A small yellow-earth road stretched forward from the landing.
The road was filled with the dead.
Farther ahead, the city of the Ghost Realm stood grimly beneath a low-hanging sky.
The little boat gently bumped against the shore.
Their journey through life had reached its end.
It was all over.
Looking back upon an entire lifetime, it was like the waters of the Yellow Springs flowing behind them.
The River of the Underworld flowed eastward.
The dead were like water passing by.
There would never be another beginning.
“…Let’s go.”
Gu Mang rose to his feet and tightened his grip on Mo Xi’s hand.
Before stepping ashore, he turned back and smiled brightly at Mo Xi.
“We still have our next life.”
Mo Xi said, “…Yes. We still have our next life.”
He held Gu Mang’s hand tightly, gently rubbing that familiar palm, and swallowed the final secret down into his throat.