On the sunlit slope, a solitary grave stood in lonely silence.
Su Yueli sat before Shen Qing'an's fresh grave for a long time. It was only when the sun began to sink, the fading light stretching the shadow of the mound long and thin, that she finally rose to her feet.
Brushing the fallen leaves from the hem of her robes, she took one last look at the markerless mound of yellow earth, then turned and walked toward the official road outside Fengling City.
Su Yueli did not walk quickly along this road.
Halfway through her journey, she encountered a cargo caravan heading her way.
Several escort guards had sabers tucked into their waists. As a gust of night wind swept past, it carried with it a rich, heavy aroma of alcohol.
Su Yueli paused slightly. Following the scent, she spotted dozens of clay-sealed liquor jars loaded onto a carriage in the middle of the caravan.
“Who goes there!” a guard barked, immediately resting his hand on his hilt upon seeing her.
“To buy liquor.”
Su Yueli pursed her lips, fished a few pieces of silver from her robes, and tossed them over. “Give me a gourd of your strongest.”
The merchant leader's eyes lit up at the sight of money. He immediately had a worker fill up a gourd and hand it over.
He hadn't expected to make a sale before even entering the city.
Su Yueli took the gourd, uncorked it, and tilted her head back to take a small sip.
“Cough...”
The liquor was incredibly strong, burning its way down to her stomach, yet it tasted remarkably pure.
Perhaps it was simply because she didn't know how to drink...
Wiping the corner of her mouth, a faint smile played on Su Yueli's lips. Her master usually only drank mountain spring water, claiming that alcohol would dissipate a martial artist's blood qi. But now that he was at death's door, his blood qi was already nearly gone. It was about time he tasted what the strong liquor of the mortal world was like.
Carrying the gourd of liquor, Su Yueli continued her journey back.
Two days later.
The rolling peaks of Black Wind Ridge appeared at the horizon. Su Yueli walked up the mountain path. As she passed the midway point, she could faintly see the small mountain village below where she had lived for three years.
However, the fog was very thick today, obscuring her view, so she didn't stop to look down.
The old village chief was dead, and Shen Qing'an was dead. The village was now filled with unfamiliar faces that looked at her with fear and rejection. Any lingering ties had long since severed.
“At least I still have Master,” she murmured.
Looking at the mountain's vegetation, her state of mind finally stirred slightly.
Having spent twenty years together day and night, Lu Chen had long since become her only family in this world.
Once she returned, she would let him taste this gourd of liquor, and then she would try to break through Bone Forging to enter the Third Realm, Blood Exchange.
A quarter of an hour later, Su Yueli stepped onto Cliff Terrace.
“Master, I'm back,” Su Yueli called out toward the dark cave, holding up the gourd. “I bought some strong liquor from Fengling City. Let's roast a few pounds of wild boar meat tonight, and you can make an exception to have a taste.”
The cave was deathly quiet, without the slightest response.
Only the ashes of a burnt-out campfire emitted a faint, charred smell.
Su Yueli's brow furrowed slightly as she stepped inside.
It was completely empty, with no sign of Lu Chen. However, on a nearby stone table lay a letter weighted down by a stone.
“A letter?”
Su Yueli raised an eyebrow, a sudden, inexplicable sense of unease rising in her chest.
Her master was right here on the mountain. What could he possibly need to write down instead of saying it to her face?
She quickly stepped forward, moved the stone, and picked up the parchment.
The handwriting was wild and hurried:
“My disciple, reading this is like seeing my face.
“I have spent my life crawling through piles of corpses. I never married, nor did I leave any descendants. Being able to take you in as my disciple in this wretched, remote place and watching you master the fist techniques I created to your very bones has been the most satisfying thing in my entire life!
“The strange condition you suffer from is a gift from the heavens. As long as you stay alive, you will eventually reach the end of the Tenth Realm of the martial path.
“But I can no longer walk that path with you.
“Over the past twenty years, my blood qi has withered day by day, but the murderous urge buried deep in my bones has only grown stronger.
“I have suffered cultivation deviation.
“Today, I went down the mountain and couldn't restrain myself. I slaughtered the village below.
“Do not blame me for being ruthless. The lives of mortals are like grass. Before my death, I simply wanted to have one last satisfying slaughter.
“I, Lu Chen, have lived my life with unyielding pride, yet now I have become a bloodthirsty, murderous monster. I have no face to see you, and have ended my own life in the village.
“Do not even think about collecting my corpse!
“There is a man named Tie Tu in Qingzhou City. He was a life-and-death friend of mine in my youth. Go find him. He can guide you on the path beyond the Third Realm.
“Take your longevity and go see what lies at the end of the martial path. Go far away, and do not let my bad luck rub off on you.”
“...”
Su Yueli's fingers turned deathly pale as she clutched the parchment.
Cultivation deviation? Slaughtering the village?!
“Impossible...”
Su Yueli's heart hammered in her chest, her breathing growing heavy and ragged.
Though her master's fist techniques were ruthless, he held a martial artist's moral baseline deep in his bones.
He had once said that a martial artist only strikes to kill enemies, never to slaughter defenseless, innocent people.
Furthermore, that village had saved his life all those years ago!
How could he have slaughtered the entire village simply because he "couldn't restrain himself"?
Su Yueli stuffed the parchment into her robes, spun around, and dashed out of the cave, the blood qi of her Second Realm Bone Forging exploding outward.
Bang!
The rock beneath her feet shattered instantly. She turned into a blur of afterimages, hurtling down the mountain toward the village.
The wind howled in her ears. The closer she got to the foot of the mountain, the more pungent the metallic stench of blood became.
As she neared the village, there were no barking dogs or crowing roosters. Even the shouts of the men who usually worked in the fields had vanished entirely.
A powerful sense of dread flooded her heart.
Su Yueli rushed to the entrance of the village and froze.
The scene before her looked as though a piece of hell had been dragged into the mortal world.
The dirt roads were completely saturated with blood, turning into dark red mires. Beneath collapsed dirt walls, beside the water well, and next to the firewood stacks lay mangled, incomplete corpses.
There were burly men whose chests had been caved in by a single punch, and farmwomen whose spines had been shattered by kicks.
Su Yueli walked forward numbly, the gourd of liquor sloshing softly in her hand, making a dull, heavy sound.
Soon, she saw Er Shizi.
The honest, simple man who had blushed by the roadside just a few days ago, too shy to look her in the eyes, was now half-buried under the rubble. His neck was twisted at a grotesque, unnatural angle, his eyes staring blankly at the sky.
And in the pool of blood at the very center of the village lay a familiar figure.
“Master...?”
His entire body was drenched in blood, his white hair and beard matted together by congealed gore. The crown of his skull was completely caved in and shattered.
Su Yueli walked over to Lu Chen's corpse, her knees buckling as she fell into the pool of blood.
Her knees sank into the viscous fluid, splashing up dark red droplets.
Lu Chen's cloudy eyes, which had refused to close in death, remained fixed in the direction of Fengling City.
Su Yueli reached out, her hand trembling violently as she touched Lu Chen's cold body.
Thud.
The gourd in her hand slipped, hitting the blood-soaked ground as the wooden cork popped out.
The pungent, strong liquor mixed with the sharp scent of blood, slowly spreading around Lu Chen's corpse.
“Why?”
Su Yueli murmured softly, her voice raspy.
“What on earth... happened here...?”
Slowly, she bowed her head, pressing her forehead against the back of Lu Chen's cold hand.
Twenty years.
Shen Qing'an was dead, frozen to death in a ruined temple with the worthless stone he had bought.
Her master was dead, his demise shrouded in mystery.
This world had ground every shred of warmth she could hold onto into the mud.
Rate on N.U.
