Chapter 136: Return to the World

The mist was thick, the snow fell heavy.

Flocks of birds circled the eaves of the tall tower. Luo Xu sat on the railing, scattering handfuls of grain, luring them closer with an open palm. A few of the braver ones took the bait, folding their wings and landing nearby, hopping step by step until they pecked at the seeds in his hand.

Luo Xu took the chance to stroke the soft feathers along their backs and frowned. “Don’t be so greedy, you silly birds,” he scolded. “It hurts!”

The birds fluttered, ignored him, and continued jostling, one even nipping his fingers in the scuffle.

Luo Xu winced and shooed them off, murmuring, “Fools.”

Startled, the birds scattered with a flurry of wings. In the flustered aftermath, Luo Xu hopped down from the railing and stooped to pick something up from the ground. A feather.

Strange.

He lifted it high, studying it like some rare treasure.

The birds of the Heavenly Sea were all black and white—but this feather was red. Not only red—it shimmered faintly with golden patterns.

A voice called out, sudden and playful: “Pretty, isn’t it?”

Luo Xu replied, “It’s pretty.”

The voice was full of pride. “Good! Then I’ll give it to you.”

Luo Xu hesitated. He wanted to refuse, but couldn’t bear to. He looked at the feather for a long moment, then said, like making a solemn vow, “I didn’t earn this. I really shouldn’t—”

The voice cut him off, already impatient, and gave him a shove toward the stairs. “What earning or not earning? Don’t want to hear it! I’m giving it to you, so take it.”

Luo Xu was taller, but let himself be pushed anyway, amused. “You keep pushing like that—how do you even see where you’re going? There are stairs here. Watch your step.”

The voice grumbled, “Your place has way too many steps. It’s exhausting to walk this much.”

Luo Xu crouched naturally, like he’d known what was coming all along. “Come on, get up here.”

The voice climbed onto his shoulders, draping itself across his back. As Luo Xu stood up, his steps swayed slightly. “Ah—ah! I’m squashing you!” the voice cried.

Luo Xu bent with laughter. “You? With that featherweight of yours? Please. You could lie on my back for a hundred years and I’d still carry you without breaking a sweat.”

“You’re teasing me,” the voice pouted.

Luo Xu made his way down the stairs, absentminded, the snow brushing against the hem of his robe. He suddenly wanted—achingly—to keep the conversation going, just a little longer. So he said, “Yes, ah. I’m teasing you. You hate me for it.”

The voice protested, “Who hates you?”

“You do,” said Luo Xu.

“No, I don’t!” the voice clung to his shoulders, leaning in close to his ear. “I don’t! I don’t!”

Luo Xu sighed, slow and dreamy. “If you don’t hate me, then why’d you call me a pervert when you kissed me?”

“I never kissed you!” the voice snapped. “You’re twisting the truth!”

Luo Xu reached the base of the tower and walked a few more paces. Then asked, with quiet gentleness: “Do you want to get down?”

“Want!” the voice declared.

Luo Xu said, “Good.”

The voice sounded puzzled. “Good what?”

Luo Xu was still supporting him with one hand behind his back. Suddenly, he took a long stride and spun twice in the snow, pretending to stumble. “So—do you want to get down, or do you want me?”

The voice immediately realised he’d been tricked. “I want to get down, of course!”

“Wrong choice,” said Luo Xu. “Then you’re not allowed down.”

The voice was outraged. “Did you dare to say I’m not allowed?”

“I don’t allow you to bite anyone else. I don’t allow you to kiss anyone else. I don’t allow you to hold anyone else.” Luo Xu tilted his head slightly. Snow caught in his silver hair and drifted around his face. He leaned in so close their skin nearly touched. “When I see you look at someone else, my heart hurts. And if you want someone else… I’ll—”

The voice clamped a hand over his mouth—roughly, not gently. Snow dusted Luo Xu’s hair. And then, quietly, he was pulled into an embrace. Two arms wrapped around his neck. A soft breath ghosted against his cheek.

“Don’t die.” The voice pressed close, cheek to cheek, watching with him as the shattered snow spiraled down from the sky, dancing before it touched the ground. “I won’t allow it. You hear me?” the voice murmured, coaxing, as if soothing a fever dream. “You’re not allowed to die. This sea holds the hatred of all the living. I need you to open your eyes—and return this world to clarity.”

Luo Xu whispered, “Spare me.”

His gaze lowered, shoulders falling in silence. Somewhere along the way, the solid ground beneath him had become water. His reflection—small, solitary—floated on the rippling surface. Snow settled on his back. In the mirror of water, he slowly turned his head.

There was nothing behind him, just empty air.

Luo Xu closed his eyes. His five fingers, still bound to his heart, trembled with the ache of it. The pain surged so fiercely it felt as if it might wring the last tears from his soul. He said, “Don’t turn ‘you and me’ into just me.”

A flock of birds burst into flight. And then—they dove at him.

Wild, frenzied, they pecked at his hands and feet, tearing into his flesh.

The water churned.

Writhing below were a hundred thousand wraiths—screaming, furious.

Their hands reached up.

They seized his legs, dragged him into the waves.

Sin.

Evil ghosts, vengeful spirits, endless and unstoppable resentment—they tore into Luo Xu’s body like wolves. The cold sea of the Heavenly Sea was sharp as blades. The spirits gnawed at his skin, flayed his flesh, shattered his bones.

Sin.

The skin of his face rotted away. His limbs were stripped to bare white bones. He was no longer a man, no longer a body. In the endless dark, he clenched his eyes shut, as though falling into an Asura’s hell. The only sounds were the cries of the damned, and the break creaks of his own body being torn apart.

“It hurts. It hurts so much—”

A child’s voice, little Ming Zhuo’s. His crying cut through the walls of time, near enough to touch. He was small, drowning in an ill-fitting robe, sobbing in a sunless palace where no light ever reached.

“Is anyone there? Does anyone hear me?”

Little Ming Zhuo clutched his face, where curse-marks bloomed like thorns.

“I hurt so much—every day… every day…”

Luo Xu’s lips moved, but no sound came. His chest burned, as though a fire had been lit inside him.

Little Luo Xu ran through the maze of towers and pavilions, scattering snow in a world drained of color. He had never cried. Not when his mother died. Not when his father fell. But when the weight of a thousand tides came crashing down, when he was crowned the youngest Imperial Lord to ever stand beneath the sky. His heart had been hollow, every day, every day.

Little Luo Xu cried, “Why me?”

Little Ming Zhuo echoed, “Why me?”

If Heaven must choose someone to bear all this pain—Why must it be me?

“Take your Silver Order and go!” Little Luo Xu shouted into the sea, hurling the ringed chain and decree-plate into the waves. “Was stealing my parents not enough? I owe you nothing, Heaven!”

The sea wind howled. His silver hair whipped wild across his face. “I won’t let you take anything else from me—” His red-rimmed eyes burned as he swore, “Not one thing that is mine.”

The rattle of chains rang through the void. It was the sound of the Soul Bond—

The shackle that joined them. To live, they must live together. To die, they would die the same.

Ding.

A pipa's melody drifted faintly through the dark, just a few faltering notes—uncertain, unsteady, as if plucked by a clumsy hand.

Luo Xu’s chest burned hot. Even as every bone in his body was torn by Tianhai’s vengeful dead, he yet lived. A fragment of golden light, thin as a thread, stirred from his chest. It pulled, gently, toward the sky.

This was the remained from when Ming Zhuo toughed his chest. It was what remained of the crimson-gold spirit mouse. Only fragments were left, and deep in the heart of Tianhai, it flickered like a single candle against a typhoon. But it still shielded Luo Xu’s heart, as if knowing there was no hope, but still speaking words of comfort.

If it’s you… you’ll find a way to live.

His heart convulsed. In that gentle heat, Luo Xu’s eyes flew open. The vengeful dead clawed at him— He fought. One hand pressed to his chest, like holding onto the last ember of Ming Zhuo’s soul-thread.

The pipa’s melody shifted, sudden and fierce. No longer tentative, but blazing with force.And then—across the ten thousand waves, something drifted near. A robe, like a phantom, caught by the currents. It held a pipa. Its form repelled the sea. Whoever wore it sat motionless, focused on the strings, fingers moving with solemn purpose.

Huala!

At some unknown time, Huimang had appeared. Its chains were still fastened to Luo Xu’s chest, yet it paid no heed to Ming Zhuo’s whereabouts. Like a moth drawn to flame, it was wholly, hungrily drawn to that robe.

The robe saw it and seemed delighted. Cradling the pipa, it spun in a slow, gentle circle—the melody it played grew slightly more cheerful.

Huimang’s white silk sleeves drifted in the water. Its expression dazed, it began pushing through the thick web of resentful souls, drifting toward the robe.

The robe played and floated upward. In the darkness, two pale hands seemed to stretch from within its sleeves. Its bowed face remained hidden, but the corners of its lips lifted in a quiet, tender smile.

As Huimang gave chase, it dragged Luo Xu’s ruined body along. The dead clung to Luo Xu, tearing his flesh apart. The wrath of a thousand ghosts scorched every inch of his being.

Luo Xu gripped his chest. His finger bones shattered. He gasped, and with what was left of his hand, clutched the faint golden light Ming Zhuo had left him.

Huimang didn’t even glance his way. The robe slowed, delicate as a butterfly, luring Huimang ever forward.

Amid the thousands of angry dead, a woman began to hum softly:

“Tianhai floats upon a cliff’s edge,

Fish carry clouds and waves…

You, ah you—”

The robe circled around Huimang and Luo Xu. The song turned gentler still:

“The stars gaze upon you,

The moon gazes too,

In all the world, only you—”

Only you.

Only—

The golden light blossomed, like being scooped gently into a mother’s arms. The crimson-gold spiritual treasure pulsed and surged. All that remained dove into Luo Xu’s shattered chest, one after the other. The pain ignited in his heart, an inferno. No mortal body could bear the force of the Jiao Mother’s power. In a single instant, Luo Xu was nearly reduced to ash!

But the robed figure, like a kind mother, never stopped humming. She strummed the pipa and, with Huimang still dragging Luo Xu’s tattered corpse, urged the sacred fire to spread through him—burning him clean. The vengeful souls swarmed closer. In mere moments, Luo Xu’s body split apart—his flesh torn open, veins ruptured.

Fire!

The wrathful of the Tianhai clashed violently with the divine blaze of the treasure. Together, they burned his body to the bone—no face, no limbs, not even ashes left behind. Luo Xu opened his mouth. It was pain, it was a scream—but no one could hear. He gripped his skull with skeletal hands; only one eye remained.

Burn!

He was neither man nor ghost now. His throat and tongue were scorched to cinders. And still, in his chest, something faintly silver shimmered—answering the gold.

It was the mangi fire—the Blessed Fire gifted by Taishao to the House of Luo. That symbol had never been meant for a the Imperial Lord, only for the Luo bloodline. So even now, even though Luo Xu was no longer the Tianhai Imperial Lord—

That Blessed Fire still chose to guard him*.*

HONG!

Three fires converged, intertwining resentment and divine energy. As he burned, the manji’s flame repaired him—slowly, painstakingly. He was torn and mended, ruined and restored. It felt endless. The pain, the pain! He was tortured without pause—his flesh shredded and stitched anew. As though Heaven itself had sentenced him to suffer it forever.

I want you to open your eyes.

I want you to return this world to its state of Taijing—its original clarity.

I—

“I am with you,” Luo Xu growled.

His hand clenched tighter over his chest, as though dragging Ming Zhuo back from the netherworld, from Hell itself, from the cruel hands of Heaven—Dragging with him all the souls that had turned into vengeful ghosts in this endless ocean—

“Across Heaven’s Gate!”

The flames surged with unstoppable fury. Luo Xu gritted his teeth, enduring the agony. Again and again, amid the sounds of bones breaking, he rebuilt his own body. The ghosts devoured him. He clutched Ming Zhuo’s soul-thread. His silver hair whipped about wildly in the burning tide.

Far above, Jiang Xueqing had just arrived beneath the Heavenly Pillar. She saw the gathered crowd all gazing toward the rift in the sky. She had removed the blindfold that covered her eyes and asked, “Everyone—has something gone wrong with the new Heavenly Pillar?”

Huang Yi swept his sleeve and pointed: “Look. In the trench carved open by the sea, the dead are gathering.”

Jiang Xueqing peered into the distance. Waves churned, and black-and-white birds circled overhead. Amid the mist, a vortex was forming. She lifted her sword and murmured, “Heaven and Earth’s spiritual forces are in chaos. A great calamity approaches. Of the Four Mountains, only two remain. If something like a—”

The words God of Disaster had barely formed on her lips when the crowd instinctively took several steps back. Wind and wave surged so fiercely they could barely open their eyes.

Huang Yi exclaimed, “The new Heavenly Pillar’s aura is so weak—why does it feel like it’s being devoured the moment it’s born?”

This new Heavenly Pillar stretched from earth to sky, wrapped in the aura of the crimson-gold treasure. Everyone had thought it must be the incarnation of some divine being. They had gathered today to witness the form of this new god. But the trench split open, and signs of ill omen appeared.

Not long ago, each sect had suffered heavy losses for the Zhenhai. No one had recovered. And now, watching the crashing waves in the trench—fear gripped every heart.

Suddenly, from the towering sea vortex, a shadow burst forth.

Someone shouted, “Ah! Four arms—that’s Huimang!”

Before they could rejoice, they saw Huimang dragging something massive—A colossal weight, all four arms straining.

Huang Yi’s eyes flew wide. “That’s—” He never finished the sentence. No one heard more than that’s— Because in the next instant, all their eyes burned, like they’d been stabbed with needles. Though still far away, the heat ignited everything around them.

Jiang Xueqing shielded her eyes with one hand. Through the searing pain, she heard birds scatter in panic, fire roaring like a rainstorm falling from the sky. Shouts rose, the trench erupted, the dead surged.

Tai Qing had descended.

— End of Volume Two —

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