He hated himself for not being able to see that slender, petite girl with his own eyes, to tell her personally that she would become the most remarkable figure in the future, while he was merely a humble servant at her skirts, yearning for a mere glimmer of her radiance.
He hated himself for not appearing before her in her most desperate, lonely, and bullied moment, to lead her toward the righteous path of heaven and earth that she longed for.
He hated himself for not being able to hold her tightly, kiss her deeply, caress her scars, and confess his love to her over and over.
In the end, from beginning to conclusion, he had already missed his chance.
It had all been his own unrequited affection.
But at least, now, it was not too late.
That girl who had prayed countless times for him to appear had never seen hope arrive.
He had to save her at least once.
In this moment, he no longer thought of any grand righteousness for the world.
Whether it was to avenge herself against the immortal sects, or to resurrect Meng Ci, it mattered not.
If she wanted to resurrect Meng Ci, then he would help her, he would save him.
Because he had already missed his chance, was already unworthy, had already lost any reason to stand by her side.
–
The moon rose over the Eastern Sea.
Waves surged on the sea’s surface, the moon floating atop the crests.
A single star hung inverted, endlessly shattered by the rippling seawater.
Between heaven and earth, water and sky merged into one hue.
Liu Qiao’e panted heavily, gripping the Blood Rakshasa tightly, fully alert as she stood on the waves facing these hundreds of Immortal Alliance cultivators.
Her skin, scorched by the Trace World Mirror, continually oozed blood. Soaked in seawater, the wounds dried into salt crystals clinging to her flesh under the wind, the pain excruciating.
Under normal circumstances, she would not take these motley rabble seriously.
But before this, she had been pursued and blocked by them for a full day and night.
The spiritual pressure of the Trace World Mirror had not only backlashed against Lan Shuying, but had also gravely wounded her.
Her cultivation was deeper than Mu Daoying’s. Not long after they both plunged into the deep sea together, she swiftly broke free of the Trace World Mirror’s illusory bindings. Ignoring her injuries, she forcibly circulated the Holy Monarch Technique, seized the Trace World Mirror, and fled with it.
The Immortal Alliance, regaining their senses, immediately dispatched troops to pursue. Only after besieging her for a full day and night did they trap her on this stretch of sea.
Liu Qiao’e felt like cursing Luo Naji’s ancestors eighteen generations over.
What the hell was that bastard doing?! She’d nearly died from exhaustion here, and still no reinforcements?!
Many ants could bite an elephant to death. Though Lan Shuying lay gravely wounded and unconscious, unable to fight, she herself was no better off.
Her dantian’s true qi was nearly depleted; even if these people all attacked at once, it would be more than she could handle.
With no other choice, Liu Qiao’e let out a long cry, urging the last remnants of true qi in her dantian to its utmost limit!
Hoping this one move would at least scare off the crowd before her, or make them hesitate to act rashly until reinforcements arrived.
As the Mountains and Rivers Sword’s piercing sword intent spread inch by inch, the crowd visibly stirred in agitation.
“Form the array!!” Some ran about, others shouted repeatedly.
The winds and waves grew fiercer; they knew well that even charging together would only mean being picked off one by one.
Thus, they resorted to the same old trick, attempting to form the Great Heavenly Array to slay her at its center!
Would she die?
Even if before this she had been utterly resolute, advancing without regret along the thorn-strewn path toward her destined goal.
Now, driven to the extreme, with her life hanging by a thread, Liu Qiao’e could not help but feel a daze settle over her expression.
In her daze, she seemed to hear a youthful voice laced with laughter by her ear.
Shaking his head: “Wrong again! Amitabha Buddha! It’s guan guan cry of the ospreys, on the river isle…”
Meng Ci.
The illusions of the Trace World Mirror had ultimately stirred the deep-seated pain buried in her heart.
Tears welled in Liu Qiao’e’s eyes, and her frail body erupted once more with towering sword intent!
She missed him so much.
She had been wrong before, wrong to lose her head upon seeing Mu Daoying.
She knew he would never blame her, right?
She could not fall here.
Just wait a little longer, just a little longer, and they could meet again.
He would hold her in his arms once more, stroke her hair, and softly recite the Ode to Guan Ju for her again.
The array thrummed continuously, buzzing through the night.
Liu Qiao’e endured at its killing-intent-filled center for the entire night.
Countless streams of spiritual qi converged into chaotic torrents, rampaging through the array night after night, endlessly awaiting the moment her strength failed to tear her apart.
She could clearly feel her arms growing heavier and heavier, aching and limp, her spiritual qi ever weaker—
Just as one such torrent finally closed in before her eyes, grazing past her cheek, a clamor of shocked cries erupted from beyond the grand array.
“Who’s there?!”
“Who dares disrupt the grand array?”
“Mu Daoying?!”
Mu Daoying? This familiar name briefly snapped Liu Qiao’e back from her nearly crumbling consciousness.
She looked out and froze on the spot!
The enormous full moon dominated half the sky. Beneath its light, a wisp of faint smoke streaked down vertically, plunging into the water and sky, stirring colossal waves!
That familiar yet strange figure in pale robes stood sword in hand, his waist pendants swaying in the wind.
Moonlight hazed his sharp brows and straight nose, his clear eyes and brows.
Mu Daoying’s long hair flowed loose, Encounter Spring gripped in his hand.
Waves surged, and he stood quietly between heaven and sea.
Suddenly, as if sensing something, he lifted his gaze. His line of sight pierced through the crowd, meeting hers.
He paused, countless emotions flashing rapidly in his eyes—emotions she could neither see clearly nor comprehend.
The bright moon illuminated the Nine Provinces; sword light flickered, shattering the starry reflections on the sea. Myriad stars seemed to converge at his sword tip, mirrored also in her eyes.
Angry accusations rose ceaselessly from the Immortal Alliance crowd around them.
But Mu Daoying heard nothing, saw nothing else.
At this moment, his eyes reflected only that familiar, slender figure.
On the way here, he had longed madly to see her.
The instant he saw her unharmed for the moment, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, his suspended heart crashing down.
Countless emotions clogged his throat; it bobbed, his eyes dry and stinging, nearly tearing up.
All the bitterness strangely subsided, and immediately what welled up was a pervading tranquility.
He slowly tightened his grip on his sword, facing his former colleagues and allies. His expression gradually calmed, a bone-deep resolve shining through the tranquility.
His mind was crystal clear, his thoughts never sharper than today.
He said softly, “Sorry.”
“Today, Ying must save her life.”
The people angrily accused him of betraying the Immortal Alliance after all, a perfect pair of adulterers colluding in infamy.
But he cared for nothing anymore.
Fickle and indecisive, they called him.
Until this day, he had finally comprehended his Dao heart, with no further wavering.
Where his Dao heart pointed, there his sword would go.
Without hesitation, he raised his sword and charged into the array, positioning himself sideways before her.
Though myriad emotions had surged in his heart on the way, now, so close to home, he felt timid, words failing him.
He didn’t even have the courage to look at her more.
Mu Daoying closed his eyes, heartache rising and falling with the waves.
“Go.”
A few scant words slipped from his tongue, heavy as a thousand jun: “Go save him.”
With that, Mu Daoying ignored Liu Qiao’e’s reaction and thrust his sword forward!
He understood now: he was the past, the quiet departure, the secret farewell, the unworthy one.
If she wanted to save Meng Ci, he would give his all, even sacrificing his life without regret.
Because this was what he owed her.
He focused utterly, facing the sky-full of killing strikes alone, not daring to glance at her again.
It was “each content with no future together.”
Liu Qiao’e froze, nearly thinking this scene before her was an illusion.
How many dark days and nights had she longed for him to descend from the heavens, to resolve her peril and spare her suffering.
With his solitary frail azure figure blocking before her against a hundred foes.
Her once-fantasized scene had become reality.
Liu Qiao’e shuddered; the ironclad armor of her heart, forged through years of bitter endurance, crumbled utterly in this instant.
Was this not a dream? Had it truly come true?
Save him?
Did he know of Meng Ci’s existence?
Of course—the Trace World Mirror. He must have seen her past within it.
But it was too late.
Liu Qiao’e’s eyes heated, long-pent tears falling.
He knew everything, but still not enough.
She couldn’t survive.
Even if she escaped, she wouldn’t live long.
She truly shouldn’t have, knowing her fate from the start, insisted on pushing him away.
Shouldn’t have, out of cowardice and fear of death, knowing her end neared, resented his ignorance and vented on him.
Shouldn’t have used every harsh word, every cruel method to torment his body and soul.
Otherwise, perhaps they could have lingered intimately, ear to temple, through her final days.
Deep down, she had faintly known: the demonic qi lingering on Meng Ci was the source of that Sword Qi.
But back then, she hated too fiercely. Before, she lived for love of him; after meeting Meng Ci, she neither loved nor hated, only wanting a quiet, simple life together.
After Meng Ci’s death, she lived for hate of him.
Without hating him, she truly wouldn’t know how to go on.
Yet he had done nothing wrong; it was she who loved and hated on her own, with a delusional extravagance that ruined his life.
The root of it all was her.
All the pain, all the suffering, all the karma—nothing but her folly in coveting the moon.
Strangely, she suddenly recalled that first day she had stubbornly demanded of him.
Those casually flipped Buddhist verses struck her heart now.
“All affections end, impermanence lingers not long.
Life holds many fears, fate fragile as morning dew.
From love arises sorrow, from love arises fear.
He who is free of love knows no sorrow, no fear.”
Had they become her prophecy as death loomed?
He was still that gentleman of old.
A gentleman like the moon.
She remained merely a petty rat coveting the moon.
It had all begun with her presumptuous extravagance.
Their lives seemed filled with misses.
This life held no chance of white heads together.
If there was a next life, let them reincarnate as neighboring children, childhood sweethearts, harmonious in marriage. Bear two children, live blissfully ever after.
She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath,
Seizing this rare chance to cooperate with him in breaking out of the array!
Countless sword lights assaulted every vital point on her body!
Yet Liu Qiao’e did not pause, did not turn back, only plunged headlong toward the brilliant moon at the horizon, toward the destined end she had long penned with her own hand.
For in the instant those sword lights struck, Mu Daoying swung his sword and flashed before her, blocking without a second thought!
She gave no heed to Mu Daoying facing it all alone.
Gale winds howled, waves roared in fury.
Countless sword lights, like falling meteor rain, poured down upon him alone!
Clang—
Amid the frothing waves and frost-snow spray, a faint cracking sound rang out.
His waist pendants shattered, the silk cords snapped, his azure robes stained crimson.
His pale, slender fingers, soaked in blood, slipped nearly from the hilt.
His steps staggered an inch, then pressed forward.
Yet he fought to the death, refusing to yield half a step!
He bled too much, nearly dyeing the sea below red; even Mu Daoying could no longer tell from which wound it flowed.
His eyelashes too were blood-soaked, droplets like tears sliding down his lids.
His vision blurred; in a haze, he saw her figure gradually vanish into the horizon, flying toward the distant moonlit sky.
He exhaled softly, his mind relaxing. With a clatter, his sword slipped from his grasp; he closed his eyes, awaiting death.
Was she safe?
This was as far as he could take her.
With two Dao artifacts in hand, seizing the Soul-Returning Lamp should be easy enough?
She would resurrect Meng Ci. Lovers reunited at last, singing “guan guan cry of the ospreys.”
But deep in his heart, another regret arose.
She truly shouldn’t have allied with the Demonic Sect.
He who had upheld righteousness half his life, at death’s door, willingly and clear-mindedly committed this heaven-defying sin.
Raising sword against fellow sect members, aiding the Demonic Sect, heedless of the world—he had committed the greatest, gravest evil under heaven.
But he no longer had the consciousness to blame himself.
A gentleman shatters like jade.
Shattering this overly hasty, regretful life that had flashed by.
Shattering the righteousness, propriety, benevolence, and trust he had clung to throughout half his lifetime. Half a lifetime’s spotless reputation ended in this final moment with his name swept into the dirt.
No matter how many sins, no matter how many debts—after death, once in hell, they could settle accounts with him one by one.